LOCAL PRESS

 

Dacic: UNMIK’s role should not be reduced (RTS)

In talks with the Head of the UN Office in Belgrade Peter Due, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has pointed to the need of UNMIK’s non-reduced role on the ground, especially in the context of offering support to the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. Dacic pointed to the importance of consistent respect of principles of status neutrality of the international presence in Kosovo, which is guaranteed by UNMIK, the Serbian Foreign Ministry stated in a release. Due and Dacic also discussed Serbia’s activities in the UN peacekeeping operations, as well as the intention of further expanding Serbia’s activities on this plane. Peter Due pointed out that Serbia in its engagement stands out as the leader in the Western Balkan region, and that it is among the first ten European countries by military and police personnel in the UN peacekeeping missions. Due and Dacic assessed that the regional round table on the UN peacekeeping operations, which will be held in Belgrade on 20 and 21 October, organized by the UN and Serbia, will represent a useful forum for examining further contribution of countries of the region in promoting peace and security in the world.

 

Serb list postpones constituting of Kosovo Assembly (Politika)

At the request of the Serb (Srpska) list, the chairperson of the constitutive session of the Kosovo Assembly Flora Brovina has postponed today’s resumption of the parliament session for 18 September. Brovina said that the session is postponed because the Serb list submitted a request for “additional time in order to conduct consultations inside the party”. She called urgent consultations of all parliamentary groups, but the representatives of the post-election bloc didn’t appear at the meeting. The meeting with Brovina was only attended by representatives of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, outgoing Prime Minister Hashim Thaqi and minority communities. Advisor of Gracanica Mayor Branimir Stojanovic, Fatmir Sheholi, confirmed for Politika that the Serb list MPs requested additional time over the situation after the signing of the agreement between the post-election coalition and Self-Determination, which opposes the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, but which is given the leading role in the negotiations. “The political dialogue will be conducted by the premiers, and the technical dialogue will be conducted by the representative of Self-Determination. I don’t see reason for confusion in Serb ranks and astonishment in Belgrade. Official Pristina didn’t interfere in the election of the delegation sent by Belgrade for the negotiation, so Belgrade, too, doesn’t have the right to interfere in the election of our delegation. Do you think it was all the same to Pristina when Aleksandar Vulin, spokesperson of Mira Markovic, was sitting on the other side of the table in Brussels,” Sheholi tells Politika. He considers that the Serb list is making “concessions” to Thaqi, while he is doing everything to indefinitely postpone the assembly, on the fly “buying MPs”. “Besides, if Belgrade could conduct the dialogue with the political director of the KLA Hashim Thaqi, I don’t see why Kurti, who used to be some clerk in the office for KLA, would not suit them. Milovan Drecun, the Chairperson of the Serbian parliament Committee for Kosovo and Metohija opines that the dialogue with Pristina will not be conducted by Albin Kurti, the leader of the right-wing and an ultimate radical movement, and sees “Pristina’s political game” in leading Kurti in the future executive power.

 

No halt over Kurti (Danas)

Representatives of the EU member states have nothing against Albin Kurti, the leader of the Self-Determination Movement, conducting the technical dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, if this is a firm agreement of opposition parties in Kosovo, Danas has learned from diplomatic sources. As Danas’ interlocutors said, even though Kurti has not always been given support from Brussels over his firm stands on the dialogue, the situation may change now since Kurti has somewhat softened his relationship towards the talks with Belgrade. “Danas’ interlocutors in Belgrade also assess that the fact that Kurti might conduct the negotiations in the future will not influence the further course of the dialogue nor be a halt. According to them, representatives of this movement in future Haradinaj’s government will have to do as they are told and will not be in the position of conditioning. The vice president of the Democratic Party (DS) Borislav Stefanovic, also the former negotiator with Pristina, tells Danas that Kurti “politically lifted” himself based on nationalistic, demagogic rhetoric, but is becoming part of that procedure by entering the “quasi-state apparatus”. “Kurti will conduct the negotiations with Belgrade in a manner told by the government. The things he is saying have nothing to do with what will be happening, since he is in no position to condition anything. The statement that he will continue the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue only as negotiations between two sovereign states is more for internal needs. We had such examples from our side, and now we see that everybody is going to Brussels for negotiations,” said Stefanovic. MP of the New Democratic Party (NDS) Goran Bogdanovic also doesn’t believe there will be a halt in the Belgrade-Pristina negotiations, since this is “an irreversible process”. All those statements are for daily political purposes, he says. “Self-Determination sympathizers were opposed to cooperation with Haradinaj, but then they signed an agreement with the coalition of opposition parties he heads. Kurti used to say that he would stop negotiations with Belgrade, but we see something different now. Thus, they are saying one thing, but doing another, just like here,” Bogdanovic tells Danas. Official of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) Slobodan Samardzic, former minister for Kosovo and Metohija, also believes there will be no changes in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue and that everything depends on the position of Belgrade representatives and whether they will defend the state interest, which they haven’t so far. “Whoever negotiates on behalf of Pristina, there will be no changes on our side. Serbian representatives don’t have a platform, basis, or requests and they are accepting everything the other side requests,” Samardzic tells Danas.

 

Miscevic: Hahn’s assessment is realistic (Beta)

The assessment of the future EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn that new member states would not be admitted in the soon future is realistic, but not in contradiction with Belgrade’s expectations, stated Tanja Miscevic, the Head of the Serbian negotiating team in the accession talks with the EU. Serbia cannot become the full member of the EU before 2020, she said, adding that the quality of the reforms trumps the speed in the accession process. Miscevic pointed that the visit of the EU Council’s Committee for Enlargement was the occasion for stressing the importance of opening one of the negotiating chapters already during the Italian presidency over the EU.

 

Much work before Serbia on course of European integrations (Radio Serbia, by Suzana Mitic)

In talks with Serbian officials, the delegation of the EU Council’s Committee for Enlargement (COELA) has been informed about the reform efforts in Serbia and expectations to open first negotiating chapters in the accession talks by the end of the year. The COELA delegation is on a three-day visit to Belgrade upon the initiative of Italy, which is chairing the EU Council, and today they have had talks with several Serbian officials. First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has acquainted the diplomats from 28 EU member-states with the activities in the fields of reforms and legislation, aimed to have first negotiating chapters opened by the end of the year. The hitherto screening process, within which we have completed the analysis of 14 chapters, and with another seven underway, has been assessed as successful, and Serbia has shown that it disposes with good administrative capacity, it has been pointed in the press release after this meeting. Having in mind that on October 10 the bilateral screening will be held for Chapter 31 – common foreign and security policy of the EU – whose bearer is the Ministry of Interior, and which will be attended by minister Dacic, special attention has been paid to the areas relevant for that chapter, such as the support to the foreign and security policy of the Union and regional cooperation in the Balkans. Dacic has stated his expectation that the EU members will recognized and acknowledge the efforts that Serbia is investing in the process of European integration, which should enable to maintain the planned pace in the opening of new negotiating chapters by the end of 2014.

Minister in Charge of European integrations Jadranka Joksimovic has assessed that the visit by the COELA delegation is an opportunity to present the overall process of reforms, in which Serbia has deeply and irrevocably engaged. She has especially underlined the fact that this delegation is having a meeting in a candidate-country, as normally it is done in a country that is presiding over the EU at that time, i.e. Italy in this case.

With Minister of Justice Nikola Selakovic the EU Council Committee’s delegation has discussed the activities undertaken within that ministry, and on which Serbia’s progress towards the EU is largely dependent. Selakovic has stressed that in the past two years some significant steps have been made in improving the rule of law, and the European Commission has acknowledged it. He added that Serbia had adopted national strategies for the judiciary reform and battle against corruption, while simultaneously the action plans for their implementation had been developed. Owing to that, the first draft of the action plan for the negotiating chapter 23 was completed and passed to the European Commission. The activities of the Ministry of Justice are strongly focusing on three supporting pillars of the chapter 23 – building the efficient and independent judiciary; battle against corruption; and strengthening the role of the civil society to improve the respect to the human rights.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Serbia, B&H to exchange liaison officers (Fena)

Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic and B&H Chief Prosecutor Goran Salihovic agreed in Sarajevo to exchange liaison officers who would be appointed to the other prosecutor’s office as representatives of their institutions. This will speed up cooperation between the two offices concerning actual cases both when it comes to technical issues and deadlines, according to a joint statement from the two offices. The agreement is based on the Protocol on Provision of Information and Evidence. The meeting was used to discuss joint activities, which, the statement says, will be satisfactory to the families of victims. Vukcevic spoke positively of the activities by B&H Prosecutor’s Office in the past two weeks, which included 8 large operations resulting in the arrest of more than 75 people, 20 of whom are suspects in war crimes cases. It was the most active period for the Bosnian office since its inception, which is a clear indicator that an efficient battle against all forms of crime and establishment of the rule of law in the region are possible, Vukcevic pointed out. Salihovic and Vukcevic met last week with Chief Prosecutor of the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals Hassan Jallow and agreed to work with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Residual Mechanism, the statement says.

 

Komsic: Time for a new generation on the political scene (Oslobodjenje)

A working meeting organized by the Democratic Front (DF) Tuzla’s municipal board was held at Congress Hall Dramar Center, at which a cross-section of activities of the past four places was carried out as well as a presentation of the Democratic Front-Zeljko Komsic’s candidates from the Tuzla area, who will be found on lists at all levels of government in the upcoming elections. “The order is that these people who are on the lists are coming out publicly, showing themselves to the public in Tuzla and Posavina Cantons and B&H sees what these people are about. These are people who are, so to speak, unspent. It is time that a new generation of people, who think they can contribute something to the country and the people, and not just themselves, appear on the political scene, and in this way start to work out the older generation,” said Zeljko Komsic, the DF leader. “It is time for new people full of energy who aren’t miserable to the people and this led us more or less when we prepared the lists,” stressed Komsic. Emir Suljagic, candidate for the B&H Presidency, said that this gathering is in the framework of regular party activities connected with preparations for the elections. “We’re here to discuss with party membership what we should do from the start of the campaign which is just a few days away, what to do during the campaign and what we will do after 12 October when we win the elections,” said Suljagic.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Kosovo Memorial to Abducted Serbian Journalists Removed (BIRN, by Marija Ristic, 12 September 2014)

A memorial to two Serbian journalists who disappeared after allegedly being abducted by the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war in 1998 has been removed for a third time.

The memorial dedicated to Serbian journalists Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic, who were abducted during the conflict in 1998 on the road between the towns of Orahovac and Zociste in western Kosovo and never seen again, was removed for the third time in three years on Friday.

The Serbian Association of Journalists (UNS) and the Association of Journalists from Kosovo and Metohija said that they “strongly condemn the removal”, and called on the Kosovo authorities to “urgently find the perpetrators”.

“Even though the municipal authorities in Orahovac and the Kosovo police were informed that the monument is there, and needs to be protected, they didn’t do anything. Just 23 days after the monument was rebuilt, only a hole was left, while the monument was taken away,” UNS said in a statement.

Slavuj and Perenic were abducted when they went to do a report on the return of Serbian Orthodox monks to the nearby Zociste monastery. According to UNS, they were in an area controlled by Kosovo fighters. Their bodies and their blue Zastava car was never found.

The memorial said in both Serbian and Albanian: “Here on August 21, 1998, two journalists, Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic, went missing. We are looking for them. UNS.”

It was installed in August this year on the 16th anniversary of their abduction.

In 2012 and 2013, journalists also put up a memorial, but it was removed after a month on both occasions.

The Kosovo minister for returnees, Dalibor Jevtic, said that the latest removal of the memorial was “unacceptable and embarrassing”, arguing that it “causes further discomfort to Serbs in Kosovo”.

“If someone thinks that by removing memorials, they will force us to stop insisting on finding the missing journalists, they are wrong. We will continue seeking justice… I call on the authorities to react,” Jevtic told local media.

In 1998, between July 11 and July 28, the KLA attacked and occupied the town of Orahovac and its surrounding villages - Retimlje, Opterusa, Zociste and Velika Hoca.

During the operation, 47 people were killed, and over 100 Serbs and Roma were kidnapped during and after the fighting.

Sixty of those kidnapped were later freed by the Red Cross.

The remains of the victims were found in 2005, in two mass graves in Kosovo.

The ‘Orahovac 1998’ case was first investigated by the Hague Tribunal but no charges were filed. Later, the case was handed over to the UN mission in Kosovo, which subsequently transferred it to the EU rule-of –law mission, EULEX.

EULEX launched an investigation, but last year, a court in the town of Prizren acquitted seven ethnic Albanians of terrorising Serb villagers and forcing them from their homes.

The Serbian war crimes prosecutor’s office also investigated the case, but due to the lack of evidence against one of the suspects, it was dropped.

 

Bosnia Serb Leader Rubbishes Secession Plan (BIRN, by Elvira M. Jukic, 12 September 2014)

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has dismissed reports that he planned to declare the Republika Srpska independent during the Crimea crisis, and was only stopped by the Serbian Prime Minister.

Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska, has denied claims that he planned to declare the independence from Bosnia of the mainly Serbian entity with Russian support - just after Russia annexed the Crimea from Ukraine.

“The Republika Srpska surely has that concept and will, according to the estimates we have, go in that direction,” he said. “But our prime goal [now] is to strengthen autonomy of [Republika] Srpska,” he added.

The claim emerged in an analysis written by Bodo Weber and Kurt Bassuener of the Democratization Policy Council.

The report on the Western Balkans and the Ukraine crisis said that Dodik planned to separate the entity from the rest of Bosnia after the crisis erupted in Ukraine.

“According to Western diplomatic sources, the Russian annexation of Crimea encouraged Republika Srpska entity President Milorad Dodik to consider undertaking concrete steps toward the entity’s long-threatened secession, allegedly with Russian support,” the report said.

“According to these sources, only Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic stopped Banja Luka through his refusal to support such a move,” it continued.

The report noted that the Serbian government led by Vucic “has struggled to maintain a tactical balance between its goal of EU integration and its special relationship with Russia.”

Dodik denied having concocted any such plan, saying that it was all part of the “hysteria in the West around Russia and Crimea”.

“I believe that Mr Weber is informed, but this time he missed it all because everything that he said is spin and a hoax,” Dodik told the Serbian daily Danas.

Democratization Policy Council is led by it political analyst Bassuener and is headquartered in Washington. The organization defines itself as a global initiative to promote accountability in Western democratization policy.

 

Wartime Croatian Serb Minister Denies Controlling Fighters (BIRN, by Marija Ristic, 12 September 2014)

The unrecognised Serb government in Croatia had no authority over the military actions of the Yugoslav People’s Army and Territorial Defence fighters, a former minister told the trial of its leader Goran Hadzic.

The Serb authorities who ran parts of Croatia during the war “simply couldn’t influence anything happening on the ground”, Borivoj Milinkovic, the former culture minister of the Croatian Serb government told its leader Goran Hadzic’s war crimes trial at the Hague Tribunal on Friday.

“Our government didn’t have any power, either over Territorial Defence or over the [Yugoslav People’s] Army... We were somewhere at the level of a local municipality and were dealing mainly with social issues,” Milinkovic insisted.

Hadzic, the former president of the government of the self-proclaimed Serbian Autonomous District Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem and subsequently president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, is currently on trial for persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, extermination, murder, imprisonment, torture, inhumane acts, deportation and forcible transfer from 1991 until 1993.

Speaking about the numerous crimes committed in the areas controlled by the Croatian Serb administration, Milinkovic said they were all committed by Territorial Defence forces, and that neither Hadzic nor anyone could have any influence over them.

He added that Hadzic and his government never advocated nor participated in the ethnic cleansing of Croats.

During his defence, Hadzic also claimed he didn’t have any authority over military operation on the ground, claiming that the Yugoslav People’s Army was the supreme authority during war, and commanded local Serb fighters as well.

Similar clams were made this week by another of Hadzic’s witnesses, Serbian Radical Party leader Vojsilav Seselj, who also accused the Yugoslav People’s Army of war crimes.

According to the indictment, Hadzic and Seselj were part of a joint criminal enterprise seeking the “permanent removal of the Croat and other non-Serb population from large parts of the Republic of Croatia” during the war. As a result of this, thousands of Croats fled Serb-controlled areas.

The trial of Hadzic continues on Monday.

 

The remarkable but dangerous fantasy of Kosovo’s president (Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, by Andrea Lorenzo Capussela, 12 September 2014)
By illegally appointing three constitutional judges, the Kosovo president breached the constitution. If the EU delegation supported the president’s decision, it gave her bad advice
On 31 August Kosovo’s president has extended the mandate of the three foreign judges sitting in its constitutional court, whose term in office expired on the same day. Reportedly, the duration of the extension is about two years: until June 2016 (the decision is not published: a notice is available here[1]). Reportedly, this decision was supported by the EU delegation in Kosovo.
Those three foreign constitutional judges are a leftover of the semi-protectorate period. When the international supervision of Kosovo ended, in September 2012, its parliament cleaned up the constitution by removing all references to international supervision and its blueprint, the so-called Ahtisaari plan. A transitional provision, however, provided that all officials appointed by Kosovo’s international supervisor, the ICO, “shall continue to carry out their functions in the institution for the specified term of appointment.” This provision (article 161 of the constitution) applied also to the three judges, who had been appointed by the ICO.
I think that this decision is illegal, based on powers that the president – Ms Atifete Jahjaga, a former senior policewoman who had effectively been elevated to the presidency by the then US ambassador – drew out of her own fantasy. I also think that this decision justifies her impeachment. I regret it shall take a while to explain why.
The decision is explicitly based on a recent exchange of letters between Kosovo and the EU concerning the mandate of the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, Eulex. The exchange of letters – available here[2], as an annex to the law by which Kosovo’s parliament ratified it on 23 April – contains detailed provisions on the appointment of Eulex’s judges and prosecutors, which are explicitly intended to override the provisions written in Kosovo’s laws and constitution concerning the selection of its judicial officials.
The exchange of letters does not concern the constitutional court. But there is one reference to its judges: it appears in a paragraph, the seventh one, in which the president “confirms” both the Eulex judges appointed under a previous exchange of letters, and the constitutional judges appointed by the ICO. This, however, can only be read as restating what the parliament had already decided in 2012: namely, that the three foreign constitutional judges would have remained in office “for the specified term of appointment”. In April their mandate had not yet expired, and there is no way to interpret that “confirmation” as an extension of their mandate, or as the basis for a presidential power to subsequently extend their mandate.
Plainly, this confirmation is only intended to clarify that the existing Eulex “judges and prosecutors” – who had been appointed through a slightly different procedure than that envisaged by the exchange of letters – shall remain in office. The confirmation, in fact, is followed by a paragraph stating that Eulex – which has no mandate or power to appoint constitutional judges – remains free to replace the existing “judges and prosecutors”, but shall have to do so according to the new procedure.
This makes it clear that this confirmation really applies only to Eulex’s judges, not to the constitutional ones, for the simple reason that the exchange of letters contains an appointment procedure that applies to the Eulex judges, not to the constitutional ones. The functional, logical link between confirmation and new procedure is both clear and reiterated, and leaves no room for other interpretations. The reference to the constitutional judges was probably added as an afterthought, to make it (doubly, if unnecessarily) clear that nothing changed for them.
There is also a strong systematic argument corroborating this interpretation. As the exchange of letters overrides the constitution, it must be interpreted narrowly, so as to limit the derogation of the constitution to what is strictly necessary to implement it. In the exchange of letters there is no explicit delegation of powers to either Eulex, the EU or the president to select or appoint constitutional judges: there is only a delegation of powers to Eulex concerning the selection of its own judges and prosecutors. So, this exchange or letters cannot be read as derogating from the constitutional rules on the appointment of the constitutional judges.
To close the discussion, consider the opposite conclusion. One would have to maintain that, hidden somewhere in the exchange of letters, there is a delegation to the president of the power to appoint three constitutional judges: a delegation without limits, as nothing is explicitly said about it. This would be an astonishing argument, as it would grant to a non-executive and non-directly elected president a power similar to that of the US presidents: given the importance of the constitutional court, such a delegated power would go a long way towards changing the equilibrium of Kosovo’s institutional system. In particular, as an absolute majority is enough to elect a president in Kosovo, a parliamentary majority would be able to appoint government, president and, indirectly, also three constitutional judges. This would seriously weaken the checks and balances system. Can an implied provision in a bureaucratic exchange of letters with the EU do all this? It would be entirely absurd.
So we can conclude that the exchange of letters changed nothing on the appointment of the constitutional judges. The applicable provision is article 114 of the constitution, under which the judges – all of them: there is no special requirement to have three foreign judges, and no special rules for foreign judges – are appointed by the president upon a proposal by the parliament, which votes with a two-thirds majority. The president can probably reject the parliament’s proposal, but can certainly make no appointment without it. Hence the president’s decision is entirely illegal: she did something she plainly had no power to do.
One might argue that the president merely “extended” the mandate of three existing judges for two years, and did not make an “appointment”. Not so: this is equivalent to making a fresh appointment, because what matters is that the president gave these three jurists the power to act as constitutional judges beyond the duration of their original mandate. After its expiry, those three judges became potential candidates for that post just like all other reputable constitutional experts in Kosovo and the rest of the world. On what basis did she choose them? It was her solitary, arbitrary, non-transparent choice. The constitution does not want that: it wants constitutional judges to be proposed by parliament after a public debate and upon a two-thirds majority vote, which de facto allows the opposition a veto.
One might argue that the president did this because Kosovo’s institutions are deadlocked since 8 June, when elections were held. In fact, the parliament has not yet even managed to appoint its speaker, and therefore cannot function (and cannot, by consequence, propose three new constitutional judges). This threatened a parallel deadlock in the court, which by law cannot operate with less than seven judges but would have had only six in office (9 minus 3).
The argument is wrong. First, the president herself explicitly invoked the exchange of letters as the basis of her decision, not some implied powers to resolve institutional crises (for the good reason that such powers do not seem to exist). Second, the two-year mandate granted to these judges goes well beyond the purpose of solving that deadlock. Third, even if the extension had been more limited in time, and intended only to overcome the deadlock, the court’s problem was for the court itself to resolve, not for the president.
In fact, as the seven-judge quorum is written in a law, not the in constitution, and as the constitution presumably wants the court to be functional at all times, its remaining judges would have been able – for instance – to rule that in such circumstances the quorum must be reduced to five (or four) judges, in order to respect an overriding principle of the constitution. This would have been a more economical solution, as it were, as it does not tinker with the composition of the court, and a solution that does not harm the constitution. The crucial difference is that the three foreign judges are now effectively the president’s judges: just as she appointed them by decree, based on an invented and limitless power, she can also remove them by decree based on the same power (logically, if by discretion she could do something, by discretion she can also undo it). In such an uncertain, unregulated situation, de facto these judges serve at the president’s pleasure and are therefore no longer independent.
Thus, there is no doubt that the president breached the constitution. This justifies her impeachment under article 113.6 of the constitution, under which presidents can be removed if they committed a “serious violation of the Constitution”. The violation is “serious” on account of both its nature and its effects. By illegally appointing three constitutional judges, she discredited the presidency, the court, and the very notion of the rule of law. And by placing in the court three persons she arbitrarily chose, she altered the composition of a crucial organ of the state and influenced all its future decisions. In fact, this is one of the most serious violations a president can make.
Those who have reason to object to this decision, or who care about the rule of law in Kosovo, can react. Under article 113.6 of the constitution 30 or more deputies can bring this case before – ironically – the constitutional court itself, asking it to remove the president.
It would be an interesting case, because the court might be unable to decide it. The court operates with a seven-judge quorum, as we said: but one of the nine current judges has been barred from hearing “political” cases, because he participated to a political rally; and the three foreign ones have a conflict of interest – which by law bars them from taking part in the decision – because the case would concern their own appointment.
Each conceivable outcome of this case would be good for Kosovo, however. If the court chooses not to decide it, for the lack of a quorum, political pressure is likely to force the president to cancel her decision. If the court chooses to remove the president, it shall significantly strengthen the rule of law. If, conversely, the court chooses to save the president, as it is more likely, it shall discredit itself even further: this would accelerate the process at the end of which Kosovo will say “enough!”, and will finally give itself an impartial constitutional court.
For the last point to be made is that the extension of those three judges is a very bad decision indeed: they approved several indefensible, manifestly mistaken judgements, and did nothing to prevent the court from being captured by Kosovo’s political élite, which now uses it as an instrument for its strategies. So if it is true that the EU delegation supported the president’s decision, it gave her bad advice: so bad that I am reluctant to believe that such advice was in fact given.

 

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership.