Special Court to be reprocessed on Friday

(All monitored broadcasters, KTV)

In its regular meeting to be held on Friday the Governing cabinet of Prime Minister Isa Mustafa will review and resubmit constitutional draft-amendments on establishment of the Special Court.

“Adoption of these constitutional amendments by the Assembly is a particularly important step for Kosovo in the process of fulfilling the obligations that the state of Kosovo has taken from international community,” a press release issued by the Government reads.

The press release also reads that fulfilment of international obligations does not dispute the just war of Kosovo Liberation Army, and it will not infringe the war values of Kosovo people.

The newly appointed US Ambassador Gregory Delawie called upon Kosovo leaders to establish the Special Court as soon as possible.

Before taking over the new post in Kosovo, Delawie took an oath at the US State Department and received the credential letters that he will present to President Atifete Jahjaga.

Failure by Kosovo to live up to its international commitment on the Court would set all of our other activities back, Delawie said.

Thaçi does not tell how the request for application to UNESCO was done

(Most monitored broadcasters, KTV)

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hashim Thaçi, continues to avoid criticism toward him regarding the manner of Kosovo’s application to UNESCO through the UNMIK Mission.

Asked about this by Vetëvendosje MP, Ilir Deda, Thaçi said that these are simple procedural issues, while he did not speak at all if signing by him is an acquisition of competencies of the Presidency.

Nonetheless, Thaçi said that the request for membership was made in line with the laws and the Constitution of Kosovo.

Deda said that this is a setback and a violation by the Kosovo institutions. According to Deda, application through UNMIK might turn into a dangerous precedent.

Grabovci instructed MPs about selection of RTK Board Members

(All monitored broadcasters, KTV)

In Thursday’s regular session of the Assembly of Kosovo, MPs initially spoke about the energy, victims of sexual violence, clearing of debts and naming of colleges.

After the failure to bring minister Memli Krasniqi’s to interpellation, they moved to the main point of the agenda and selected Ismet Bexheti, Hysen Berisha, Mimoza Hasani and Lirim Geci as the new RTK Board Members.

Meanwhile, Hasan Saliu, Muharrem Shahini, Mustafë Halili and Fehmi Ajvazi, as well as Serb candidates, Ivan Veljkovic and Spasoje Cvetkovic, did not get the necessary votes to become part of this Board.

During the process of voting, the PDK caucus leader, Adem Grabovci, was very busy in giving recommendations to MPs on who they should vote for.

Furthermore, to be certain, he was seen circling names of his preferred candidates in the list of Serb MP, Milka Vuletic.

The voting was boycotted by Vetëvendosje Movement, with justification that proposed candidates are unprofessional and that some of them there are also people who were candidates for MP.

Assembly approves draft law on digitalization of terrestrial broadcasting transmissions

(Most monitored broadcasters, RTK1)

In the second part of Thursday’s session of the Assembly, MPs discussed and approved a number of draft laws, including the draft law on digitalization of terrestrial broadcasting transmissions. Amendments proposed in this draft law triggered debate between the MPs.

Vetëvendosje MP Shqipe Pantina had many remarks regarding Article 16 of the draft law which deals with procurement of additional equipment after this process.

After all the discussions regarding this amendment were over, only two were against and it passed. 32 amendments in total were proposed in this draft law, while the amendments 26 and 27 were not supported by the Assembly Committee on European Integrations.

“The functional committee changes its composition of the supervising committee and consequently it destroyed the balance of equal representation as far as two regulators are concerned, the IMC and ARKEP. As a matter of fact, at the beginning there were two representatives each, while later IMC had three representatives and ARKEP continued with two and a representative of the ministry. Therefore, the European Integration Committee did not support this amendment,” said Teuta Sahatqija, Chairperson of this Committee.

Following many discussions, with 55 votes in favour, eight against and no abstention, MPs approved the draft law on digitalization of terrestrial broadcasting transmissions.

In an interview, the Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK) General Director Mentor Shala welcomed the approval of this draft law. He also welcomed the election of new RTK Board Members and pledged to closely work with them.

Slobodan Gavric appeared at trial

(All monitored broadcasters, KTV)

The first hearing session of the trial of Serbian citizen, Slobodan Gavric, who was arrested several months ago with a big quantity of explosives in Prishtinë/Pristina, was held. Gavric is accused of the alleged attempt to commit a terrorist act.

His defence lawyers said that the indictment has not been formulated properly as the offence of his client cannot be treated as a terrorist act.

On the other hand, RTK1 reported that Kosovo has about 300 judges and 150 prosecutors, who deal with many different tasks, but none of them is specialized for terrorism-related cases.

The Chief Prosecutor of the Special Prosecution Office (SPRK), Sevdije Morina, confirmed to RTK that Kosovo lacks prosecutors that deal with terrorism cases. She also admits that the institution she leads also has no special department dealing with terrorism.

Morina expressed her hope SPRK will have special prosecutors taht will deal only with terrorism cases.

Judges are in no better position than the prosecutors. The Kosovo Judicial Council (KJC) chairperson, Enver Peci, confirms this situation, but he says that this happens due to small number of judges.

“We have plans for profiling judges that deal with certain crimes, but for the time being it is impossible to appoint judges who deal only with one type of crime,” Peci underlined.