Petkovic: Kosovo Judicial Council Blocks Judges' Return
Kosovo's Judicial Council voted nine to one to reject the return of Serb judges and prosecutors, a decision Petkovic calls a breakdown of reintegration, as the OSCE calls for transparent hiring.
The director of Serbia’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic, said the Judicial Council of Kosovo’s interim institutions in Pristina had unlawfully blocked the reintegration of Serb judges, prosecutors, and administrative staff. The Office published its statement on August 28 at 10:10 a.m., a day after the OSCE Mission in Kosovo issued a similarly worded statement of its own, and after Kosovo’s acting president, Aljbuljena Hadziju, announced she would move on dismissals as soon as the proposals reached her.
The Judicial Council rejected the Serb staff’s request to withdraw their resignations and return to work, voting nine in favor, one against, and one abstention. According to the outlet KoSSev, Council member Ivana Milenkovic voted against the decision, while Council chairman Rustem Taci abstained.
The same script as with the prosecutors
Serb judges, prosecutors, and administrative staff filed their request to return electronically on July 15. The Prosecutorial Council had already rejected the return of Serb prosecutorial staff on July 20, and Petkovic sees the Judicial Council’s decision as a repeat of that same pattern.
“They said it would be an act of treason if the so-called Kosovo judicial and prosecutorial councils ruled in favor of the Serb judges and prosecutors,” Petkovic told reporters.
He recalled that Serb staff, along with police officers and other officials, had walked out of Pristina’s interim institutions in early November 2022.
“We are talking about key agreements from the dialogue that provide for Serbs to have access to justice, given that Kurti’s judiciary serves only as a club against Serbs and as a tool whenever Serbs need to be persecuted, whenever weekend houses need to be torn down, whenever Serbs need to be arrested simply for wearing T-shirts with Serbian emblems,” Petkovic said.
He added that without international mediation, there would be no Serb presence in the institutions at all.
“Because if it were up to Kurti, there wouldn’t be any Serbs left in Kosovo and Metohija,” Petkovic said.
Petkovic demands the EU step in
The director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija pointed to the 2013 Brussels Agreement, the 2015 agreement on the judiciary, and that agreement’s 2016 conclusions, singling out Article 10 of the Brussels Agreement, which he says spells out Pristina’s obligations under the judiciary deal.
“That’s why the EU exists. It took on the role of leading the dialogue, it is the facilitator of the dialogue, and it bears responsibility for the implementation of all the agreements, since it put its own signature on the 2013 Brussels Agreement, where Article 10, among other things, clearly states Pristina’s obligations under the agreement on the judiciary,” Petkovic said.
The decision does not itself finalize the dismissals
The Judicial Council’s decision does not by itself dismiss the judges. The proposals now go to acting president Aljbuljena Hadziju, who has said she will not wait to act.
“As soon as the Kosovo Judicial Council submits its proposals to me, I will move to have them dismissed from office,” Hadziju said in a statement.
The OSCE Mission in Kosovo spoke out on August 27, a day before the Office for Kosovo and Metohija’s statement, calling for the vacant positions to be filled without delay while respecting community representation.
“Kosovo’s Judicial Council should fill the vacant positions without delay, through transparent, inclusive, and merit-based procedures, in line with the applicable constitutional and legal provisions on community representation,” the OSCE statement said.
“A judiciary that reflects the communities it serves is essential to ensuring equal and effective access to justice for all,” the Mission added.
The word “representation” in the OSCE statement does not name Serbs directly, but it landed the same week Belgrade branded the Judicial Council’s decision a breakdown of reintegration, and the two statements, in different language, describe the same vacancies in the judiciary in northern Kosovo. Srpske.rs previously covered the first step in this sequence, the Judicial Council’s decision itself, in the article “Kosovo Judicial Council Rejects Return of Serb Judges 9:1.”
