Kosovo authorities have accomplished their job with regard to creation and the start of work of the Special War Crimes Court. It is now up to Brussels to accomplish their part of the job, that is, that Netherlands authorities adopt the law on Special Court with the seat in Hague.

European Union is about to finish administrative part needed for the start of the work of the court. Council of the European Union is supposed to adopt the budget until the end of this month. The first job advertisement has been closed in late May, which should enable staffing of the court. “It is expected that second, overall job advertisement, would be advertised during the summer, when judges will be hired as well. It is also planned, when all conditions are met, that special chambers in Kosovo, organize a press conference where they would explain the current process and their mandate,” explained Dinka Živalj, spokesperson of the Special Representative of the European Union in Kosovo.

In the EU Office in Pristina were not able to confirm when all of this would take place concretely. There is no precise information about it from the Kosovo government and the parliament, either. They stressed that job that was up to Pristina, was accomplished, however after the pressure by the international community.

The Deputy Kosovo Prime Minister, Branimir Stojanović, stressed that when international community exerts such big pressure, like in this case, everything can be implemented. “The second part, the technical one, has now remained to be accomplished, which is in hands of those who are in charge for recruiting the judges and staff, and we hope that we can talk about months when investigations will start and when we will have first indictments raised against those who will be processed by this court,” said Stojanović.

There are more speculations in Pristina, than verified information about who is on the list of indicted ones by the Special Court. “It is in the end an ad-hoc court, which will end its mandate one day, maybe in five, ten years, however it won’t deal with all crimes. On the other side, I’m afraid that majority of families of victims will not be satisfied with the work of this court, because not all crimes would be processed,” said Bekim Bljakaj from the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) in Kosovo.

In the HLC say that it is expected that the Special Court would open the door to Kosovo courts for processing more freely those who committed crimes. The goal of the Special court is to process crimes highlighted in the report of the Swiss senator Dick Marty, about human organ trafficking, mostly of Serbian civilians, by members of the former Kosovo Liberation Army. In his report Marty has highlighted the newly elected Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi as the main leader of the group that dealt with crimes.