HRW: Judicial system in Kosovo “extremely weak”
The judicial system in Kosovo is undermined and should be improved urgently, one of the leading international human rights organisations, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its report.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Monday, March 31, 2008
The HRW said that investigative bodies did not have enough police assistance and that the internal control of the work of judges, prosecutors and police was missing.
It urged the international community to improve Kosovo's "extremely weak" justice system.
"Kosovo's criminal justice system is broken," Holly Cartner, Human Rights Watch's director for Europe and Central Asia, said in a statement. "It's in urgent need of fixing and that will take a real commitment by the government and the EU."
The 34-page report criticized the system's insufficient police support for prosecutors and deep divisions between national and U.N.-appointed judges and prosecutors. It said prosecutors were suspicious of national officials' ability to conduct fair investigations and deliver unbiased verdicts in sensitive cases such as ethnic crimes, political violence and corruption.
It also reported widespread witness intimidation and lack of witness protection programs, as well as unfairly lenient sentences because of the intimidation of national judges who "are threatened and bullied by defendants, their relatives, or their supporters."
Cartner said building a rule of law in Kosovo will rely on "the ability to learn from past mistakes, and on the willingness of the government and the new international mission to police, prosecute, and punish criminal conduct, wherever and by whomever it is committed."
