Indpendent Agencies Report - Alb, Ser, Eng.pdf - QKSS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Assembly of Kosovo established the Ombudsperson, the Auditor-General and the Anti-Corruption
Agency as independent state institutions. They have a very important role to play in ensuring that
checks and balances are applied and that rule of law is fully respected by all public authorities,
including Kosovo’s new security institutions. While the legal, institutional and policy frameworks in
place are in accordance with internationally recognized democratic standards, they still suffer from
loopholes in their legal construction as a result of inexperienced legal drafting. Also, the implementation
of these frameworks is still lagging behind, because of undue political interferences that seriously
obstruct the impartial and effective functioning of these independent institutions. These interferences
include:
• a lack of follow-up by government and parliament on the findings and recommendations
submitted to them by the independent institutions;
• attempts by the Government to influence their composition and their findings;
• inadequate staffing and allocation of financial resources;
• abuse of loopholes in the existing legislation as a result of poor legal drafting;
• lack of political support from the government and the parliament;
• insufficient assistance by the justice sector.
The Government and the Assembly of Kosovo must lead by example and publicly demonstrate
unwavering support for the independent institutions. They must respect their independence as
guaranteed by the Constitution and the law. Otherwise, if current practices continue, there will be no
incentive for the security institutions to cooperate with the independent institutions. In any case, they
have merely “soft powers” and also entirely depend on a very weak justice department to enforce
actions.
Because the security institutions are still in the early stages of their development and have not yet
developed the institutional capability to be fully functional, they are still exposed to possible violations
of human rights, to abuse of public funds and to negative influence through corrupt practices. It is
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