From July 1, Kosovo prosecutors will be handling serious corruption and war crimes cases without international supervision as the EU’s rule-of-law mission switches to an advisory role.
Domestic prosecutors will soon handling cases alone that have been transferred from the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, which from July 1 will continue operating only with an advisory role.
EULEX, the largest EU civilian mission, has been operating in Kosovo since 2008 with a team of prosecutors and judges tasked mainly with dealing with war crimes and high-profile official corruption.
The Chief Prosecutor at the Kosovo Special Prosecution, Reshat Millaku, told BIRN stated that domestic prosecutors are ready to deal with serious cases that have been handled by EULEX until now.
“The prosecutors of the Special Prosecution Office of the Republic of Kosovo are experienced and professionally trained to successfully complete all cases of any kind,” Millaku said.
He admitted that one of the challenges that domestic prosecutions will face is a deficit of prosecutors.
“The Special Prosecution Office of the Republic of Kosovo does not currently have sufficient prosecutors,” Millaku said.
“However, five new prosecutors will soon join us,” he added.
Florent Spahija, a legal adviser at the Kosovo Democratic Institute, told BIRN that there are also other challenges also that local prosecutions will face on serious criminal cases.
“Political influence is a continuing problem for the judiciary, including the prosecution,” Spahija said.
He added that the domestic prosecutors need more training.
“Our prosecutors have been dealing with corruption cases constantly but have not shown any good performances in the fight against corruption,” he said.
When it comes to war crimes cases, Spahija said that the lack of witnesses will be an obstacle.
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