Local judges and prosecutors have the means to raise indictments for corruption cases but lack the courage to do so, the country’s anti-corruption agency said.
Edona Peci
BIRN
Pristina
Comparing international prosecutors to local ones, Hasan Preteni, head of the Anti-Corruption Agency, said local judges and prosecutors “enjoy the stability, security and financial independence [to raise indictments on corruption cases], but lack the courage.
“A justification that local prosecutors use when they drop a case and don’t raise any indictment is to say ‘intent was not proven’,” he noted.
“However, Article 22 of the Criminal Code underlines that intent [for a crime] does not have to be proven – one can still raise an indictment by analyzing the nature of the offence”, Preteni said in Pristina.
Presenting its annual report for 2013, the agency said it raised 128 criminal charges against 238 people during last year, and public procurement remains the most corrupt area.
Preteni’s made his comment as the government in Pristina presses its demands for the transfer of judicial powers from the EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX, to local authorities.
Earlier this month, the state prosecution said that from November of 2013 to February this year, prosecutors raised 83 indictments for corruption against 196 people.
The prosecutor’s national coordinator for corruption cases, Laura Pula, meantime rebuffed the agency’s accusations of lacking willpower.
“We analyze all information coming from the Anti-Corruption Agency and then we decide whether the elements of a criminal offence are there,” she told Balkan Insight.
The fight against organised crime and corruption is one of the key criteria for Kosovo’s further European integration.
In its latest annual Corruption Perception Index, the watchdog organisation Transparency International ranked Kosovo 111th out of 176 countries worldwide in terms of corruption.
