Kosovo courts do not recognize decisions of the Serbian courts; thus citizens are the most affected, Basic Court in Mitrovica judge Ljiljana Stevanovic told Radio kontakt plus. She added lack of translators and backlog of court cases, some of which became outdated or are about to become are the main issues affecting the integrated judiciary in the north.

Stevanovic underlined that the decision on continuity in recognizing decisions from the Serbian courts is not respected.

“If the aim of those who have designed the project of integrated judiciary in Kosovo was to improve the lives of citizens, then they had to take into consideration and enable continuity of decisions made either in Serbian or Kosovo judiciary,” Stefanovic said.

Examples of divorce of marriages, registered in the Serbian courts, illustrate what kind of issues citizens are facing.

“People who have registered their marriages in the Serbian institutions, people who still live here can not get divorced, because their marriage certificate respectively documents that were not issued by the Kosovo administration are not recognized,” Stefanovic added.

“The recognition of decisions that are valid is something that must be done as soon as possible, in order to enable people to fulfil their needs, since judiciary and all of us are here because of the citizens,” Stefanovic pointed out.

She also added, integrated Serbian judges took over 200 cases at the beginning of the year, saying these are old cases. She also assessed relations between the Serbian and Albanian judges as exceptional, Radio kontakt plus reported.