Kosovo Prosecutor Exam: 371 Candidates Sit Test in Vucitrn
A qualifying test in Vucitrn for 34 prosecutor posts, ten reserved for Serbs, was held Saturday. The Prosecutorial Council does not say if any of the three Serb applicants came.
371 candidates sat the qualifying test for 34 new state prosecutors on Saturday, November 7, at the Kosovo Academy for Public Safety in Vucitrn, the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council announced. Ten of the 34 posts are reserved for members of the Serb community, but the Council’s statement does not say whether any Serb candidate took the test at all.
The test was held three days after the European Commission’s report on Kosovo, which singles out the failed reintegration of Serb judicial staff.
Who took the qualifying test?
The test was taken by 174 women and 197 men. Those who pass the full procedure will be assigned to basic prosecution offices across Kosovo after the selection.
The Council says the questions were drafted on the day itself, shortly before the test, in the presence of local and international observers, to respect “the principles of transparency, integrity and equal treatment of candidates.” The testing was supervised by Arian Gashi, chair of the Commission for the Recruitment of State Prosecutors, together with the other commission members. Representatives of the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), the OSCE Mission in Kosovo and the organization AVONET observed the process.
The qualifying test is followed by a written exam and interviews with candidates, then selection and assignment.
Did any Serbs come to the test?
The Council has not answered. The competition was announced in August, when 34 vacant prosecutor posts were identified in the system, and Kosovo’s prosecutorial system then had 177 active prosecutors. By the original deadline of August 31, no candidate from the Serb community had applied, so the deadline was extended to September 15.
After the extension, three candidates from the Serb community applied, according to figures from the television station Dukagjini at the end of September. According to the same source, none of them was among the prosecutors who left Kosovo institutions in November 2022. The Prosecutorial Council has not said whether those three are among the 371 who took the test today.
How did the competition come about?
It followed a failed attempt to bring Serb judicial staff back. Serb judges, prosecutors and administrative staff withdrew, on July 15, 2026, the resignations they had submitted in November 2022. On July 20, the Prosecutorial Council rejected the requests of five Serb prosecutors and 15 members of the expert and administrative staff of the Basic Prosecution Office in Mitrovica. A day later, the then acting president of Kosovo, Albulena Haxhiu, signed decrees dismissing seven Serb prosecutors.
The European Union criticized those decisions, saying they appeared incompatible with Kosovo legislation, due legal process and the requirements of the rule of law. Serb judges fared similarly: their requests to withdraw their resignations were not accepted either.
In the report published on November 4 (which we covered earlier), the European Commission finds that Pristina has not enabled the reintegration of Serb judicial staff and that the subsequent recruitment procedure, which included a quota for Serb prosecutors, was not successful. In the Commission’s assessment, the decisions of the Prosecutorial and Judicial Councils, as well as those of the then acting president, are not in line with the goals and obligations of the 2015 Agreement on Justice. The Commission also recalls that leaving the institutions in November 2022 breached Serbia’s obligations under the 2013 Brussels Agreement.
The date of the test carries symbolism: exactly four years earlier, on November 7, 2022, Serb judges, prosecutors and administrative staff in North Mitrovica formally submitted their resignations and left Kosovo’s judicial institutions.
