In less than a month in the north of Kosovo, the court and the prosecutor’s office should start working; it was agreed in Brussels at the last meeting of Serbian and Kosovo Presidents, Aleksandar Vučić with Hashim Thaçi. The Kosovo Judicial Council undertook all technical actions, candidate admission is done, and now in progress are works for the arrangement of the court building in the northern part of Mitrovica.
October 17th is the date until when the Agreement on the Judiciary of Belgrade and Pristina should be fully implemented. It refers to the functioning of the prosecution and the Basic Court in the north of Kosovo.
“As for the judicial and professional staff of this court, we have taken all the actions, we have spoken verbally with all the candidates and they have been elected, and only the appointments of the president of Kosovo is awaited, and some additional points of this agreement remain to be implemented” says the Executive Director of the Judicial Council of Kosovo, Shkelzen Maliqi.
What is known for now is that on the basis of the agreement, there will be a total of 163 judges and auxiliary staff.
Most of them are of Serbian nationality. They say that it’s necessary for the functional work of the judiciary in the north that the judges and prosecutors to get into the work, because there is a difference between legal acts, according to which they have worked so far and those according to which they will continue to work in the future.
There is no accurate record on how many cases are awaiting enforcements. Estimates are from several thousand to several tens of thousands.
In the Kosovo Judicial Council say that the court in the northern part will have two departments.
The general one – for civil litigation, will be in the southern part of Mitrovica, while the crime department will be in the northern part of the city. The court in the northern part will also have a department of the Court of Appeal with headquarters in Pristina.
“This Department will be competent to deal with appeals coming from parties from the North, but also from other parts of Kosovo, if they request so. In this department there will be Albanians and Serbs, and their engagement will depend on the jurisdiction over the case,” Maliqi says.
In the Council they state that preparations are being made simultaneously and in the prosecution, in order for it to start working based on the agreement from Brussels.
October 17 is the deadline for all the preparations to be done and seven days later the court and the prosecutor’s office will start functioning.
