Although the criminal justice system has made considerable progress in the past 12 months, the enormous task of establishing an efficient and fair criminal justice system is nevertheless still a work in progress, says OSCE's latest review, issued last week.
   
Covering district court proceedings between September 2000 and February 2001, the report points up absence of basic habeas corpus procedures, the need for alternatives to pre-trial detention for juveniles, delays in proceedings against detained suspects and the lack of victim/witness support as areas that UNMIK and the Department of Judicial Affairs (DJA) still needed to address. One major problem was that judges continued to apply provisions of FRY Criminal Procedure Codes that are in breach of human rights laws and, thus reducing the ability of defendants to prepare their defence. Widespread holding of suspects outside judicial proceedings by executive authority and KFOR was again singled out.
   
Neverthless, these deficiencies should be seen, the report says, against the background of one of the biggest obstacles to establishing a comprehensive criminal justice system in Kosovo, namely the disenfranchisement of a significant number of the local judiciary for over a ten-year period. OSCE's Director of Human Rights and Rule of Law, Rolf Welberts recalls that almost all of the current judges and public prosecutors had not had the ability to practice in the field of law or continue their legal education during that time.
   
Also, six months ago, when OSCE's first report was issued, there had still been a shortage of international judges to help guide local counterparts and to ensure fair trials for minorities. The situation since had considerably improved-with 17 international judges and public prosecutors now active in Kosovo's judicial system. This allowed each district to have two international judges and one international prosecutor, in addition to the two international judges assigned to the Supreme Court, explains the DJA's Officer-in Charge, Fernando Castanon.
   
Welcoming the findings and recommendations Castanon points out that after the first 6-month review a joint OSCE-DJA working group was formed and met regularly to examine the issues and to find viable and implementable solutions to problems identified. The Kosovo Judicial and Prosecutorial Council had been set up to investigate and take action where appropriate on alleged misconduct of judges and prosecutors. Responsibility for detention centres and correctional services had been shifted to DJA's Penal Management Section. And while there were still shortfalls in that area, strategies to address outstanding issues had been put into place and improvements would be forthcoming, Castanon promised.
   
Presenting the report, Deputy SRSG Daan Everts saw it as evidence of the advanced state of cooperation between the different organisations working under the UNMIK umbrella: "The OSCE underlined its commitment to supporting the further development of the criminal justice system by identifying concrete problems and recommending a strategy to address them in a coherent and comprehensive fashion".  The new report offered constructive criticism made in the full knowledge that the criminal justice system had developed from nothing into what it was today, acknowledged Everts. "Much has been achieved…in two years you can't build a perfect judiciary system," he concluded.

Suspect arrested for terrorist bomb attack in Pristina

The April 18th bombing of two vehicles leaving the Serb-administered Centre for Peace and Tolerance (CPT), has once again focussed  unwelcome international attention on Kosovo.
The attack killed the head of the Yugoslav passport office in Pristine, Aleksander Petrovic, seriously wounded one woman, injured three other civilians and caused substantial property damage.

While all the victims were from the CPT, UNMIK Police points out that the casualties could have been indiscriminate and much larger in number because the bomb was packed with metal fragments designed to act as shrapnel. Fortunately, a substantial amount of the explosives failed to detonate. Had the full 10 kg of explosives blown up as planned, the blast would have devastated the surrounding neighbourhood, causing extensive casualties in the street, including children playing in the area.

The Security Council condemned the bombing as a cowardly terrorist attack for which the perpetrators had to be brought quickly to justice. The Security Council President, Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock of the UK, called the attack "another deliberately planned and clearly ethnically motivated attack on Serbs in Kosovo." SRSG Hans Haekkerup expressed outrage at what he termed a "terrorist" attack-i.e. an attack without regard for its impact on innocent civilians. It was totally unacceptable, the SRSG said, that some people tried  to set the agenda by using violence. He reiterated his call to the people of Kosovo not to allow the work of a few to disrupt the ongoing processes to bring self-government to Kosovo.

The EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Dr. Javier Solana, who only recently warned that the whole of Kosovo risked paying-literally and figuratively-if such barbarism carried on, said he was utterly disgusted with the continuing acts of senseless terrorism. "I strongly urge all Kosovo leaders to live up to their responsibilities and to do all they can to stop these cowardly attacks, which are seriously endangering the political outlook for Kosovo," Solana added.

UNMIK Police, assisted by KFOR explosive experts and KPS officers, and supervised by an international prosecutor and an interntional judge, immediately put a 10-nation investigating team on the case. As a result, one suspect, an adult male, was arrested on Friday evening.
However, the police believe that more than one person was involved and appealed to the public for information: "The people who committed this crime are stealing the future of Kosovo. There should be no public support for those who are willing to expose others to such injury or death in pursuit of hate-motived crimes", a police statement said.

Briefs...

UNMIK tax collection points along the boundary with Serbia proper continue to be contentious in northern Kosovo. Set up by the CFA's Tax Administration to collect excise duty on alcohol, cigarettes and fuel and sales taxes due on most other saleable goods, their purpose is to stem revenue losses to the Kosovo Consolidated Budget. These are estimated at DM 2.7 million per week and are incurred when suppliers and importers evade such taxation by routing goods through Serbia. Without these revenues, the Administration contends, Kosovo 's budget will falter seriously and UNMIK itself might be in breach of Security Council Resolution 1244 as a result.  The political leadership in the north objects to tax collection because, since February, Belgrade posted its own tax collectors on the other side of the boundary to levy a 20 per cent export tax on goods coming to Kosovo. UNMIK's taxes therefore constitute double taxation. UNMIK counters that it is not only obliged to collected taxes, but that Belgrade's action undermines the northern leadership's second argument, namely that UNMIK tax collection legalizes the border-in effect turning the boundary into an international border. UNMIK is careful however to distinguish between customs duties, which are levied at international borders with Albania and Macedonia (and are not levied at the Serbian boundary tax points except on goods not originating in Serbia), and the sales taxes and excise duties which are liable on all goods sold in Kosovo.  Thus, the boundary tax points only collect customs duty on goods originating outside the Yugoslavian Federation, whose territorial integrity UNMIK therefore continues to respect. Meanwhile, how much revenue the boundary tax points collect is less important than keeping untaxed goods out of circulation-which the current road blocks in northern Kosovo achieve as effectively as the tax points they are blockading.

Arrangements to ensure that foot and mouth disease does not take root in Kosovo's still depleted cattle herd are moving into place. Disinfection tanks are installed and approved disinfection is available at the following border and boundary crossing points: Morina South and Prusit (border with Albania); Kulina (boundary with Montenegro), Blace and Globocica (border with FYROM),  and at Zubin Potok and Gate 5 (boundary with Serbia proper). Preparations under way at Gate 1, Donje Karaceov, Vic Mucibab and Gate 3 (boundary with Serbia).

Following extensive background checks by UNMIK, UNMIK Police and KFOR, UNMIK is preparing to name eight private security service companies that will be granted provisional licenses to continue their operations in Kosovo for the next six months. It is understood that only two will be allowed to carry arms in connection with their services. Until now some 25 firms have been providing various forms of security services but only 15 applied to the UNMIK Business Registration Unit under the terms of regulation 2000/33 on Licensing Security Service Providers. The final licensing decisions will be promulgated before 1 May.

OSCE is  encouraging Kosovo Serb participation in both the registration and the electoral process through a series of information seminars on electoral systems and voter registration  Participants, who include representatives of political parties, NGOs and media outlets, are given an understanding of how electoral systems are chosen and how they work. Special emphasis is placed on issues such as: how smaller communities can benefit from various electoral systems; the options for ensuring minority representation on the elected body; voter registration both inside and outside of Kosovo; and the certification process for political entities wishing to contest an election. Deputy SRSG Daan Everts has sent a clear message that participation is a prerequisite for Kosovo Serbs to safeguard their interests and voice their concerns within Kosovo.

The Department of Post and Telecommunications together with PTK hope that a new strategy will unblock the impasse over provision of terrestrial line telephone services to Kosovo Serb communities and their non-payment of past bills. PTK engineers met with their Serbian PTT counterparts last week to assess the technical problems involved. Once they are solved, PTK will reconnect individual consumers who can show they have paid at least their last bill. Outstanding payments from all previous bills will be considered a separate issue, to be returned to at a later time. The Department wants to treat all Kosovars as individual customers and to provide them with services as long as they pay their current bills. This should put an end to tit-for-tat arguments such as the threats last month by the municipality of Zubin Potok's to cut off cut off the water supply for the area south of Mitrovica-in retaliation to threats to cut the network because of non-payment of bills.

OSCE organized and chaired the first meeting of a coordinating group that will devise a permanent structure for the delivery of civil legal aid in Kosovo. It will work closely with the European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR), which began a one-year pilot project on civil legal aid on 15 April. The group's working premise is the right of any criminal defendant who may face imprisonment to legal assistance from the moment of arrest-a basic principle of international human rights law. This is already partly reflected in FRY law, which for crimes with a punishment of at least three years imprisonment allows the accused to ask for free defence counsel if she/he is unable to pay for it. For crimes with a possible punishment of five years' imprisonment, such assistance has to be given automatically. Legal assistance  is also important in civil cases, particularly for complicated cases. Relatedly, OSCE will use $30,000 from the US Department of State to start up a Criminal Defence Resource Centre (CDRC). The CDRC's premises have been located and its founding Statute filed. Initial efforts will focus on intensified training of defence counsel relating to advocacy skills, sentencing and pre-trial detention.

A Department of Justice circular is being drafted which allows for necessary expenses to be paid to court-appointed defence counsel in certain circumstances over the DM 500 DM monthly fees for their legal services. This responds particulary to complaints from minority counsel who travel from Serbia to defend clients in Kosovo that their expenses for travel and accommodation alone exceed their DM 500/monthly salary. UNMIK's concern is that the budget allocated will not be sufficient to cover the demand for court-appointed lawyers, whose costs per case are estimated at DM 60.

All but two municipalities now have sanitary inspectors and all have passed a mandatory test in both water and food hygiene. The first batch of 18 sanitary inspectors recently received following training and successful passing of an examination. Also to ensure the quality of drinking water, a Department of Health and Social Welfare priority, the  ICRC has helped to refurbish the laboratories of the Institutes of Public Health.

Ways to control a low-level but long-lasting hospital infection in the Gynaecological Department of Pristina University Hospital (PUH) have been drawn up the Department of Health and Social Welfare, PUH, WHO, UNFPA, ECHO and Canadian International Development Agency. They include intensified training in hospital hygiene and infection control, introduction of a new-born care programme and major refurbishment of the Gynaecological Department. Wards have been renovated by the Irish NGO GOAL, and new delivery rooms are under construction.

As a result of ongoing theft of pylons and equipment waiting to be erected for power lines further degradation of the Kosovo power grid could occur as already happened on the 220 KV lines to Skopje. In one incident, while KFOR MNB (W) was working to clear mines and enlarge the access road to the broken pylons on an 110 KV line  another pylon went down because its was weakened by vandals who have stolen some parts of it.