Criminal Sanctions Against Official Corruption and other Offences Against Official Duty Offenders in Kosovo for the Period 2008-2015

• Author: Flutura Tahiraj
• Position: Faculty of Law, University of Prishtina, Kosovo
• Pages: 44-60

ACTA UNIVERSITATIS DANUBIUS Vol. 13, no. 2/2017

44

Criminal Sanctions Against Official

Corruption and other Offences Against

Official Duty Offenders in Kosovo for the

Period 2008-2015

Flutura TAHIRAJ

1

Abstract: The need to fight corruption, with the focus on official corruption in Kosovo continues to be

addressed b y both national and international reports. The objective of this paper is to find out the

number of the cases and analyse the sactions against official corruption and other offences against

official duty delivered by Municipality Courts in Kosovo during the period 2008-2015 with the aim to

assess the developments during a period of eight years since most of the other researches are focused

on annual performance of the courts. All data presented in this article are taken from the Kosovo

Statistical Office and include statistical information on the types and frequency of criminal sanctions

to perpetrators of the official corruption and other offences ag ainst official duty. Case study is also

applied to analyse some court judgments. The study shows there is a slight incresase of the number of

convicted perpetrators over years, the number of corruption cases addressed by the courts remained

very limited, followed by low sentences or even prescription of cases. The findings will add additional

scientific insights to the existing knowledge about preventing and fighting official corruption and it can

be useful for scholars, policy makers and practitioners in Kosovo.

Keywords: Corruption; Court Judgements; Municipal Courts; Offences a gainst official duty;

Punishments

Introduction

Fighting corruptions remains one of the most difficult challenges that Kosovo is

facing nowadays. With all continuous promises of the relevant institutions that there

will be zero tolerance aginst corruption, in the European Commission Report 2016,

it is again highlighted that Kosovo did not comply with its responsibilities in this

regard. Moreover, along with the demarcation of the border with Monte Negro, the

1

Faculty of Law, University of Prishtina, Kosovo, Address: Agim Ramadani Street, n.n. 10000,

Prishtina, Kosovo, Corresponding author: flutura.tahiraj@yahoo.com.

AUDJ, vol. 13, no. 2/2017, pp. 44-60

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fight against corruption are claimed to be the main obstacle of the VISA liberalisaton

process for Kosovo.

The high level of corruption in Kosovo has been confirmed by many researches and

reports of different local and international organisations including media. In July

2016, there were published some interceptions from a previous closed court case

which seems to involvesenior public officials in the official corruption and criminal

offences against official duty. Although, these interceptions were available to the

court back in 2009 but no legal measures were taken against these public officials,

the reprentatives of the court system in Kosovo keep repeating that they are doing

the best in fighting corruption and did achieve a step forward in pubishment of these

cases.

Having this into consideration, this paper is focused in punishments that the

perpetrators were given for the official corruption and offences agains official duty

in Kosovo during the period 2008 until 2015. The methodology of this study includes

the analysis of the criminal sanctions in the courts of Kosovo including the number

and types of sanctions in order to present the approach of the courts toward fighting

the official corruption and offences against official duties after Kosovo declared its

country independence.

Definitition and Types of Criminal Sanctions according to the Criminal

Code

Criminal sanctions are repressive measures that represent an important role in

fighting against criminal acts in general and fighting official corruption and criminal

offences against official duties in particular. Salihu (2014) highlights that through

these criminal sanctions, the courts limits the rights to the perpetrators, incluing the

freedom of movement, wealth etc. Since the criminal sanctions are repressive

measure imposed by the court as defined by law in the criminal procedure, these

measures in practice and theory are named as punishment policies of the courts.

According to Salihu (2014) the criminal sanctions aim protection of certain values

of citizens and the society in general. The Article 41 of the Criminal Code of Kosovo

defines the purpose of the punishments as follows:

 to prevent the perpetrator to commit the criminal offences in the future and

to rehabilitate the perpetrator;