UNMIK on Air

“Ombudspersons Report”

July 2004

(Valon A. Syla)

Slug: The Ombudsperson Institution’s annual report was published last week, and not surprisingly it was highly critical of the international role in Kosovo. Listen to different views on the report here.

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Marek Antoni Nowicki: “One very important aspect from our point of view with respect to human rights protection is the question of the quality of the legal system and the quality of the laws with that legal system. Also – there are different questions concerning the media and the accessibility of laws for the ordinary citizens.”

Polish civil rights attorney, Marek Antoni Nowicki heads the Ombudsperson institution in Kosovo.

The Ombudsperson is Kosovo’s official “peoples lawyer” tasked by UNMIK and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, to monitor and recommend actions for institutional abuses of power in Kosovo.

Bernard Kouchner, Kosovo’s first United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG), originally appointed Nowicki, who has been the one and only Ombudsperson since July of 2000.

Among the duties of the Ombudsperson Institution is an annual report of the State of Kosovo’s affairs, and the current report is the fourth in as many years.

[Atmosphere sounds of the March 17 and 18^th civil unrest]

On March 17 and 18, civil unrest spread in Kosovo and damage was done to an already fragile reinvestment of trust between the different ethnicities after the conflict in 1999.

People’s lawyer, Nowicki, sees a system fraught with legal problems, further burdened with difficulties after the March riots.

The Ombudsperson Institutions report on the state of Kosovo’s affairs was addressed to the acting SRSG, Charles Brayshaw.

UNMIK press officer Jeff Bieley explains.

Jeff Bieley: “After the march riots nobody can dispute the Ombudspersons conclusion that the security and the basic rights such as freedom of movement of Serbs and other minority communities in Kosovo leave much to be desired. For this reason, UNMIK has been vigorously pursuing the perpetrators of those crimes and has undertaken such initiatives as setting up Security Advisory Group where the security measures of Police and KFOR are more transparent and take into account the genuine concerns of minority communities.”

The deputy Ombudsperson Hilmi Jashari explains that during the year of 2003/2004 more than 4000 claims and cases were received by the Ombudsperson institution, which were advised and helped by the ombudsperson and his deputies.

At the Ombudsperson Institutions every month, there are what is called Open Days in the municipalities of Prishtina, Gjilan/Gnjilane, Peja/Pec, Mitrovica and Prizren. These Open Days allow complainants to personally meet the Ombudsperson, or in exceptional cases his deputies. At the Main Office in Prishtina, the Open Day is on every second Thursday.

Deputy Ombudsperson Hilmi Jashari:

Hilmi Jashari: “During the so called open office days, the ombudsperson personally meets with more than 300 persons. The characteristics of the cases vary, but are mainly about property rights issues. Many were accusations that described what residents see as the lack of investigation in certain criminal cases. Also there is the accusation of the misuse of authority. Minority issues were also quite prevalent and, according to the Ombudsperson Institution – there are rare issues that call on the monitoring of the work of the courts.”

Faik Marolli is one of the members of the Ashkali community in Kosovo who says his property rights were violated. According to Marolli after the 17 and 18 of March – quality of life security for minority communities is even more relevant.

He spoke with UNMIK during a minority meeting in early July:

Faik Marolli: “Questions of unemployment and occupied property still remain open. There are a lot of occupied houses and even those that are evicted don’t look like houses anymore but like stables. I can say today that in Kosovo Polje there are 27 families that are out of their homes. It’s similar in Rozajevce and Podujevo.”

Ombudsperson Marek Antoni Nowicki says that the annual report has gathered many different cases, which could be used by UNMIK and Kosovo’s government as a road map towards solving and avoiding problems.

Nowicki: “If I was the government and I had such a concrete report, I would learn a lot about what has to be done to improve the situation - because we have stressed what we see as certain concrete problems. Generally, I do hope that the government and UNMIK do not consider this as just another piece of paper from the ombudsperson institution, but this should be considered as good material for discussions what should be improved, how to improve and how to avoid these problems which still exist and when standards discussions will be raised all the problems stressed in the report would be on the table for discussion.”

In the final analysis, the Ombudsperson Institution also stressed that Standards for Kosovo are almost entirely linked with issues of human rights and freedoms.

As such, the Ombudsperson looks to play a key role in the standards for Kosovo.

That was all from UNMIK on Air, Thanks for listening… Good-bye.