A vote cast more than a decade ago is bringing visible consequences today. According to lawyer Tomë Gashi, the proposal of the Democratic Party of Kosovo to amend the Law on the Specialist Chambers has no practical value, even if it gets the green light in the Assembly, because the judicial process in The Hague has already entered an advanced stage. He assesses that this move weighs more on the political plane than on the legal one.
Të lidhura
None found
Gashi argues that beyond political calculations, the initiative cannot bring concrete consequences to the justice system. His reasoning is that any change to the law on the Specialist Court would first require an intervention in the text of the Constitution, which makes its realization impossible at this moment.
Another point the lawyer highlights relates to the contradictory stance of PDK itself. He draws attention to the fact that the same party that today asks the Assembly to pass a new law, has previously contested the legitimacy of this institution, calling it unconstituted and sending the matter for review to the Constitutional Court.
Regarding the content of the proposal itself, Gashi says that it is legally unenforceable at this stage. He recalls that the initial law on the Specialist Chambers was passed on 3 August 2015, only after several constitutional amendments were made. Consequently, according to him, it is futile to think that one could touch even a comma of that law without first amending the Constitution.
Regarding the claim that the Specialist Court has overstepped its mandate, the lawyer calls this a wrong approach. He recalls that PDK’s proposal aims to focus the court’s work precisely on the accusations of human organ trafficking, mentioned in the report of Swiss senator Dick Marty at the Council of Europe. However, Gashi emphasizes, a special investigative team composed of American prosecutors investigated for four years without finding a single piece of evidence for these allegations. He adds with conviction that no member of the Kosovo Liberation Army will ever face such an accusation, not simply for lack of evidence, but because such a thing never happened.
The lawyer also rejects the possibility that through the amendment of the law, investigations could be opened into matters that have already been closed by a court ruling. He refers to the fact that the Specialist Court, after a six-year investigation and a trial lasting about three and a half years, has issued an acquittal for charges of crimes against humanity. For Gashi, it is a paradox to seek the investigation of a matter for which such a ruling already exists, and he sees these simply as political hypotheses that will bring no real effect.
Linking the initiative to the current political climate in Kosovo, Gashi estimates that it could further polarize an already fragile situation. He recalls that most of those who are in PDK today voted precisely for the law on the Specialist Court in 2015 and should have reflected then on the consequences of that action, not try to change it more than 11 years later, when things are irreversible.
As for the possible closure of the Specialist Chambers, Gashi explains that the termination of the court’s work does not depend on Pristina’s will, but on a special body within the Council of Europe or the European Union, which will decide whether it has fulfilled the purpose for which it was created. Afterwards, funding would be cut and a timeline would be given for winding down the activity.
Another important element, according to him, is the international agreement with the Netherlands as the host state. Gashi underscores that the Specialist Court has the character of an international court and the contract with the Netherlands cannot be broken unilaterally. If the Netherlands were to aim to end the agreement, a special arbitration would have to be formed to assess the consequences of this action.
In conclusion, Gashi sees this entire initiative as an episode of internal political struggle, which, despite the engagement, will yield an almost zero result. He considers any attempt to change the law as overdue and impossible, no matter how painful and unjust the court may seem. According to him, the deputies who voted that law in 2015 should have been more careful and not react now, driven by public dissatisfaction with the recent ruling against the former KLA leaders, which he says is based on evidence from Serbia.
The lawyer also raises the question of why PDK has not reacted to previous rulings of the Specialist Chambers, such as those for Pjetër Shala, Hysni Gucati, and Nasim Haradinaj. According to him, the current reaction is purely political, while the demand is addressed to a parliament that the party itself disputes as unconstituted, calling this a pure contradiction.
The Democratic Party of Kosovo deposited today in the Assembly the Draft Law on amending and supplementing the normative act that regulates the Specialist Chambers and the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office. Chairman Bedri Hamza announced that the initiative does not aim to close the court, but that the charges against the four former KLA leaders – Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi – be closely linked to the reasons for which that court was established and not to expanded interpretations. This initiative comes as a consequence of PDK’s public opposition to the sentence that the Specialist Chambers handed down to these figures, a ruling that the party has called unjust and unacceptable.
