SEEU Review vol. 6 Nr. 2 (pdf) - South East European University

Rexhep Gashi, Dr. sc.an international tribunal, which exercises jurisdiction over Kosovo (Art.107,para.1).Corruptive incriminated actions, which may be perpetrated by officialpersons, are available in several chapters of the Criminal Code of Kosovo.Hence, in chapter of criminal offences against economy, are foreseen severalcriminal offences which may be perpetrated also by the official persons inpublic institutions and other bodies such as: Misuse of economicauthorizations (article 236), Entering into harmful contracts (article 237)etc., which actions are relatively frequent in Kosovo practice. Whilst, themajor number of criminal offences related to corruption are foreseen withinthe chapter of criminal offences against official duty. Such criminal offencesare: Abusing official position or authority (article 339), Misappropriation inoffice (article 340), Fraud in office (article 341), Accepting bribes (article343), Falsifying official documents (article 348) etc. Provisions of this codeclearly define the criminal offence: Accepting bribes (article 343), which isfrequent in Kosovo practice. Pursuant to paragraph 1 of this article, criminaloffence of accepting bribes is perpetrated by an official person who solicitsor accepts a gift or some other benefit for himself, herself or another personor who accepts a promise of a gift or some other benefit to perform withinthe scope of his or her authority an official or other act which he or sheshould not perform or to fail to perform an official or other act which he orshe should or could have performed (Art. 343, para.1). Commission of thiscriminal offence is determined with alternative manners: by soliciting a giftor some other benefit, by accepting a gift or some other benefit or byaccepting a promise for a gift or other benefit. This code foresees sentenceswhich may be imposed to official persons, if they are found guilty forcorruptive criminal offences.Criminal Procedure Code of Kosovo. Criminal Procedure Code ofKosovo, which was promulgated with UNMIK Regulation No.2003/26 andentered into force on 6 April 2004, also foresees numerous advancedprovisions with modern solutions related to an increase of effectiveness ofcriminal procedure against perpetrators of criminal offences, including thosecriminal offences involving corruption. In this aspect, it is worth mentioningprovisions related to technical measures of surveillance and investigations,of protection of witnesses, cooperative witnesses etc., even in cases relatedto serious corruption forms. Pursuant to provisions of this code, a covert ortechnical measure of surveillance or investigation are: Covert photographicor video surveillance; Covert monitoring of conversations; Search of postalitems; Interception of telecommunications; Interception of communicationsby a computer network; Controlled delivery of postal items; Use of tracking70