Leposavic citizens without a notary for years

For nearly six years, residents in northern Kosovo have been without a notary, and in order to reach one from the northernmost municipality of Leposavic, they need to travel more than 50 kilometers. That is not the only problem, there are also language barriers, canceled and reissued job postings, and many other challenges.

For all contracts, agreements, and other written documents, i.e., for their legal verification and validity, a notary is required, and residents from northern Kosovo have mostly gone to the southern part of Mitrovica for this service.

Mladen Ciprijanovic, a law graduate from Leposavic, emphasizes that there have been public calls for notary positions which Serbs applied for, but they were soon canceled.

"Since 2019, we can say there has been no notary in northern Kosovo. That year, a public competition was announced with applicants from the Serbian community, but it was annulled, and to this day, we still don’t have a notary," Ciprijanovic points out.

At the beginning of this year, a new competition for notaries was announced again, but once more, it was in vain.

"To my knowledge, there were no Serbian candidates in the north of Kosovo. In the south, there were some, but none of them were accepted. Albanians were appointed," Ciprijanovic said.

Recently, a decision was published on the website of the Kosovo Ministry of Justice regarding the appointment of a notary for the municipality of Leposavic.

“About 10 days ago, the Ministry of Justice published a decision appointing a notary for the municipality of Leposavic. According to the decision, it is a woman from Istok who is scheduled to begin work on April 7,” Ciprijanovic added.

He emphasizes that for Serbs, it is very difficult, not only because of the distance but also due to the language barrier and documents that are only in Albanian, without translations.

“It is not easy, but that is how it has worked for years. Now that we had the opportunity to get notaries from the Serbian community, again, due to the overall political situation – partly because people were unaware of the open competitions, and partly because they were unwilling to participate under such conditions – Serbs did not even apply,” Ciprijanovic said.