Specialist Chambers on law amendments: No comment, focused on our mandate

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague are fully focused on carrying out their mandate and currently have no comment on the adoption of amendments to the law governing the Court by the Kosovo Assembly, spokesperson Michael Doyle told Kosovo Online.

“We have no comment at this time. The Specialist Chambers are fully focused on carrying out their mandate to ensure fair, impartial and secure judicial proceedings, as well as the protection of witnesses and victims,” Michael Doyle, spokesperson for the institution, said in a response to Kosovo Online.

Meanwhile, the EU said that it was deeply concerned about the amendments to the Law on the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which, according to officials in Brussels, were contrary to Kosovo’s international obligations toward the EU.

The Kosovo Assembly adopted the amendments to the Law on the Specialist Chambers in the second reading last night, on the proposal of the Democratic Party of Kosovo.

The amendments envisage several substantive changes to the functioning and jurisdiction of the Specialist Chambers. Among the most significant changes are an alteration to the temporal scope of the Court’s jurisdiction, setting it as the period from July 1, 1999, to December 31, 2000, as well as limiting the maximum prison sentence to 15 years.

The amendments also provide for the transfer of cases that would no longer fall within the jurisdiction of the Specialist Chambers to Kosovo institutions, as well as the possibility of appealing to the Kosovo Supreme Court on matters relating to jurisdiction.

They further provide that convicted persons may serve their prison sentences in Kosovo, while presidential pardons would also be possible in certain cases.

The President of the Specialist Chambers, Ekaterina Trendafilova, had already warned in 2021 of the “serious consequences” of amending the legislation governing the Specialist Chambers, as there were also calls at the time to collect signatures in support of amending the laws under which those institutions had been established.