The Role of the Legal Officers - Eulex

The Role of the Legal OfficersPresentation by Anna-Christina Winterstein

The Role of UNMIK Legal• Special Chamber• International Judicial Support Division• Criminal DivisionOfficer

Current Tasks of Legal Officers serving forthe Special Chamber• conduct legal research on the applicabledomestic law and international human rightsprinciples related to property law.• review and analyze different issues pertaining tothe adjudication of cases related to theprivatization process, commercial transactionsbetween parties, ownership claims, negotiationbetween parties and liquidation procedures.

Current Tasks of Legal Officersserving for the Special Chamber• draft legal opinions, letters to parties, orders,decisions, judgments and other courtdocuments.• Assist with the preparation of Chamberprocedures; such as ensuring the properscheduling of hearings and other sessions,distribution of summons, court decisions andother legal documents.

Suggestions how to improve the division of dutiesbetween Judges, Administrative Support Staff andLegal Officers within the Special Chamber:• Clear guidelines on how to draft a document,also with regard to the final outcome.• Assignment between the Judges/Legal officersshould be reconsidered.• Possibilities to have continuous trainings oroccasions/meetings amongst Legal Officers andJudges to share information and discusslegislative developments and /or policydecisions which might arise from deliberations.

Legal Officers serving for theJudges in criminal matter• Assist the International Judges of the District Court for criminalmatters.• Conduct legal research and provide advice on the applicable law,including International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.• Review, analyze and advise on all court and investigationdocuments such as medical, forensic, police, military, andinvestigation reports.• Draft legal opinions, summons, arrest warrants, motions,responses to motions, decisions, orders, verdicts and other legaldocuments.• Liaise on behalf of the judges with the registry, law enforcementauthorities, police, prosecution and defense.

Legal Officers serving for theJudges in criminal matter• Assist with investigation procedures and trialpreparation, including the distribution of summons,court decisions, and other legal documents.• Participate, advise and assist the judges in hearings,trials and processing of evidence and documentssubmitted during the trial.• Coordinate and supervise other court support staff,such as administrative assistants, court recorder andinterpreters/translators.• Draft weekly reports on the developments in the casesassigned.

Administrative Tasks of LO’s LegalOfficers serving for the Judges in criminalmatter• drafting of simple letter, summons delivery,photocopying, numbering of file ect.• Organizational and liaising tasks

Suggestions how to improve the division of duties betweenJudges, Administrative Support Staff and Legal Officerswithin the Special Chamber:• Regular coordination meetings between Judgesand Legal Officers• Simple administrative tasks should be left to theadministrative staff/registry.• Strong coordination of the workload of eachLegal Officer

Current Tasks of Legal Officersserving for the ProsecutorsSupport international prosecutors in criminal case investigation andprosecution:• Analyze complex criminal case investigation and trial materials, identifysignificant legal & factual issues and recommend solutions.• Draft legal pleadings, appellate briefs, correspondence, memoranda, and otherdocuments necessary to further investigations, trials and appeals.• Screen criminal reports submitted by police or others.• Submit recommendations to Chief International Prosecutor on case selectionto international prosecutors or KSPO (Kosovo Special Prosecutors Office).• Conduct legal research as requested• Liaise with investigators and police; under the supervision of the tassignedinternational prosecutor, direct investigators & police to complete necessaryinvestigative tasks• Liaise with Judges and their Legal Officers regarding the Court proceedingsand the personnel of the Legal Policy Division concerning requests forinternational legal assistance or extraditions.

Current Tasks of Legal Officersserving for the Prosecutors• Attend investigation hearings, detention hearings, andtrials to provide support to prosecutors when necessary• Monitor progress of CD investigations and prosecutionof cases by checking CD & IJSD hearing calendars andverify information received on official court records• Draft correspondence as requested in response totasking from the Office of the Director of DOJ• Provide advice and assistance as requested on transitionissues to the Chief International Prosecutor

Current Reporting Tasks of LegalOfficers serving for the Prosecutors• Report Criminal Division's achievements andchallenges and communicate effectively toUNMIK HQ, and other entities as required.• Submit accurate inputs on investigations andprosecutions for reporting needs• Prepare CIRs (Case Initiation Reports) asrequired to ensure that all cases being handledby international prosecutors and KSPO arerecorded in CD central records

Administrative Tasks• Response to external correspondence not related to any of thecases assigned to the Legal Officer• Enumeration of file pages, archive management• different reporting procedures, such as political reports, weeklyreports, reports on technical assistance, follow-upup- reports on thedevelopment of the most important cases which are not alwaysassigned to the respective Legal Officer• 30 to 40 % of the Legal Officer’s s duties are of administrativenature: this includes organizing the binders of criminal cases(numbering the pages and indexing), copying documents for thedisclosure to the defense (especially when local staff silentlyrefuses to work with highly sensitive cases), ensuring that thebinders of the prosecutors are multilingual, etc.

Suggestions how to improve the division of dutiesbetween Prosecutor, Administrative Support Staffand Legal Officers• None or very limited administrative tasks.Administrative tasks should be limited to thesupervision of the work of Administrative Assistants.• Responsibility for external correspondence shouldremain with a secretary of the Prosecutor only• Regular meetings with prosecutors and other legalofficers which would provide an opportunity to discussand share ideas and difficulties we faced in applyinglaw, or to set out basic directives

Suggestions how to improve the division of dutiesbetween Prosecutor, Administrative Support Staffand Legal Officers• Coordinate reporting system limiting it to oneweekly report, compiling information related tothe cases the respective Legal Officer hasactually worked on. If a report of differentcontent is needed, it should be compiled by areporting officer taking the informationprovided by the weekly report.

Suggestions how to improve the division of dutiesbetween Prosecutor, Administrative Support Staffand Legal Officers• The main role of the Legal Officer should be toassist the EULEX Prosecutors with legal issuesin the pre-trial, trial and appeal stage, such asinvestigations, the interrogation of witnesses,legal research, applicable legislation andjurisprudence, liaise with the police and finally toassist with the drafting of the respective legaldocuments.

Chief of the EULEX ProsecutionOfficeEULEX Prosecutors JudgesEULEX Legal OfficerLegal AdvisorsAdministrativeAssistants

President of the Assembly of theEULEX JudgesEULEX JudgesEULEX Legal OfficerLegal AdvisorsAdministrativeAssistants

Assignment of Legal Officer’s• There are two ways to assign LO’s:1. Judges/Prosecutors based assignment.2. Case based assignment

Advantage of the Judges/Prosecutorsbased assignment• Advantage is that the Judge/Prosecutor getfamiliar with their working style in terms ofharmonization.• Full impartiality of the Court is guaranteed• Control over workload of each Legal Officer iseasier

Disadvantage of the Judges/Prosecutorsbased assignment• Very difficult if the Number of LO’s andJudges/Prosecutors is not equal• Legal Officer probably works only on specifictype of cases• LO’s Master is only one Senior Jurist• Interpersonal Problems

Advantage of the Case basedassignment• Judges are changing with each stage of the proceedingonce they are burned. Therefore the LO is the perfectfigure to keep track of the case that is than forwardedto the next judge. (Pre-trial/confirmation/maintrial/appeal)• Otherwise two persons have to get familiar with thefile once it comes to a judge.• Easier when it comes to interpersonal problems• work varies more for LO

Disadvantage of the Case basedassignment• workload is sometimes overseen byjudges/prosecutors and the burden remainsolely by the LO how to cope with the workload• Requires strong coordinating role of thePresident of the Assembly and her legalassistant.• Concern of impartiality of the Court

Current way of assignment at theSpecial Chamber• as a matter of principle, Legal Officers are assigned toJudges• this functions quite well, since the number ofInternational Legal Officer is more or less the samethan for International Judges.• If in the new Special Chamber with 6 EULEX LegalOfficers will work with more EULEX Judges (first andsecond instance), the division of duties should bereviewed.• flexibility is required according to the complexity of aparticular case or other circumstances.

Current way of assignment at theInternational Judicial Support Division• Because of the shortage of staff LO’s areassigned to cases and judges at the same time• There was also a period where Legal Officerswhere assigned to judges or cases• Pretty much depends on the Number of Judgesand Legal Officers

Current way of assignment at theCriminal Division• Legal Officers are assigned to criminal cases and not tospecific prosecutors.• There should be one person (Senior Legal Officer, orProsecutor) assigning Legal Officers to the certain casesalso keeping track of the workload of each and everyLegal Officer in the division.• Otherwise, prosecutors would randomly go to one orthe other Legal Officer and task them with urgentmatters (e.g. 3 at a time) without knowing about eachother.

Conclusions• Administrative tasks should be theresponsibility of the Administrative Assistant.• Legal Officers are too expensive to be hiredfor that and it is quite frustrating to have todeal with this issue having a broad legalbackground.• The only role the LO should play in this regardis to supervise and coordinate when necessary.

Conclusions• Regular coordination meetings between Judgesand Legal Officers• Possibilities to have continuous trainings oroccasions/meetings amongst Legal Officers andJudges to share information and discusslegislative developments and /or policydecisions which might arise from deliberations.

ConclusionA very important interpersonal issue:• In term of motivation Legal Officers wouldappreciate I they have the feeling to work WITHa Prosecutor or Judge instead of working FORhim/her.• There is a huge difference between dumping thewhole case on a Legal Officer and sharing theworkload with him/her.

Proposal• Establishment of Administrative Guidelinesthat contain:1. Standard Operational Procedures2. Unified Templates in line with the applicableLaw to be used if possible by both, local andinternational personal serving for the KosovoJustice System:

Standard Operational Procedures• Administrative Guideline for Assembly of theJudges, their Legal Officer• Administrative Guidelines for the ProsecutionsOffice• Administrative Guidelines regarding thecooperation with correctional and police service,including both, local and EULEX personal

• Summons• Rulings• Orders• Judgments• Other Court DecisionsTemplates proposed for the Judges and LO’sserving for the Court in Criminal Matters