GThe laptop for Juridical and Political Studies has held today the media conference in which attitudes related to parliamentary procedure and the contents of the Bill for the State Bureau and Verification and Confiscating of Inefficiency Riches, which is expected to be voted in second reading Thursday by the Assembly of Kosovo.
GLPS representatives stressed that the current bill did not address the findings of the Constitutional Court and comments of civil society, allowing the Bureau to become a political tool and violate citizens’ judicial security.
In relation to the two-read procedure, G The LPS expresses concern that the Workers Group failed to review in detail the contents of the Bill, proposed amendments, legal recommendations and analyses of society organisations. Moreover, holding working group meetings at the same time as other working groups in law reform bills and in a short time, unable to contribute members to review the contents of the Bill, passing this procedure as formalism.
As for content, G The LPS estimates that the Bill contains the same provisions that the Constitutional Court with the Ko46/23 Act in 2023 had abolished the entire original version of this Bill.
Despite the fact that the Constitutional Court has ascertained the fact that verifying and confiscating the property of officials cannot be made for a period longer than 10 years, due to the objective inability of providing evidence, the current bill continues to contain the provision that any property and every official person will be subject to any formal person whenever of February 17, 2008. The current bill has failed to secure the Bureau’s functional independence, risking the same serve as a political tool rather than a mechanism for civil seizure. It is disturbing that the current provisions define a simple majority for the appointment of the Director and three Bureau members, and that candidates for these positions must meet a minimum threshold of only 5 years of work experience.
The current bill, according to the GLPS, also does not guarantee the legal security of subjects that could potentially be subject to verification and seizure of property, allowing the Bureau at any stage to withdraw from the proposal for seizure, as well as not specifying clearly whether criminal procedure could be initiated if with evidence gathered in the seizure procedure there are differences that the same has been acquired through criminal work.
The current divisions do not ensure equality of the parties in the civil seizure procedure, they also specify that the subject be questioned by the tribunal, the Bureau’s official and the third party at the hearing concerning property that is subject to scrutiny. So while the spirit of implementing the civil seizure procedure is completely contradictory, these provisions define elements that question the development of an impartial procedure. Consider the importance of establishing the Bureau and the above findings on the provisions of the Bill, G. The LPS is seeking from the Kosovo Assembly not to proceed with a second reading vote without addressing issues decontaining effective implementation, judicial security and full independence of the mechanism for civilian seizure of unwarranted property. There, it is said.
