The rule of law is the factor that determines whether the countries of the region will move in the direction of economic and social development, or will stagnate and sink into problems, it was said at the regional conference on the rule of law in the Western Balkans, organized by the Center for Civic Education and the German Foundation Friedrich Ebert.
The President of the Board of Directors of Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Srđan Blagovčanin, on the panel "Towards a just future through strengthening the rule of law in the Western Balkans", pointed out that ensuring political will is crucial for the successful establishment and strengthening of the rule of law, but also that remains the question of all questions for the region.
"The rule of law is a factor that determines the path of the countries of the Western Balkans - whether we will move in the direction of economic, social and any other development, or whether we will stagnate and sink into problems that are still very present," said Blagovčanin.
He stated that there is no country where corruption has been eradicated, adding that the countries of the Western Balkans share similar problems conditioned by deeper structural problems.
He explained that here, first of all, he is referring to the phenomenon of a captive state in which the most complex form of corruption is contained, where political elites or the ruling political structure capture the country, processes and institutions and subordinate their work and functioning to the particular interests of a narrow group of people at the top of the pyramid of power .
"The prosecution of political corruption is an indicator of the extent to which the judiciary is independent. If political corruption is not prosecuted, it is a reliable sign that the judiciary in that country is under political influence," said Blagovčanin.
He assessed that in all countries of the region, political corruption, to the greatest extent, remains unpunished, which leads to the conclusion that there are illegal political influences on the work of the judiciary, but also emphasized that this does not mean that the entire judiciary is under political influence.
Another part of the problem when it comes to the rule of law in the region, as he said, relates to the fact that all the countries of the Western Balkans are recognized as hybrid regimes.
"On paper, we are all democratically organized countries. However, in practice, we lean significantly towards autocratic practices. This is primarily about the absence of a fundamental division of power," he said.
"The dominance of the executive power is characteristic of all the countries of the region, and the legislative, and especially, the judicial power are in a subordinate position and dependent on the executive power," said Blagovčanin.
According to him, in the process of liberating states, the starting point is the recognition that reforms are not only technical processes - that it is not enough to just write a good law, establish a new institution and strengthen personnel and material capacities, but that these are also political processes that require political will .
Professor of the Mediterranean University and lawyer Miloš Vukčević said that Montenegro is a leader in the process of European integration, but also that it has been negotiating for the longest time and that fatigue is already felt in the judiciary and institutions, which increasingly lack the necessary personnel and administrative-technical capacity.
"How to achieve the rule of law if you don't have judges and prosecutors? And, what causes it? I'm afraid that Montenegro and the region will face the problem of a lack of staff, and the function of a judge should be a privilege," said Vukčević.
He said that the problem is deeper and more complex, illustrating it by the fact that the number of students at the Faculty of Law has been declining for years.
"The cause should be sought in the current state of the judiciary and the prosecution. "The work of a judge is difficult and responsible, and salaries in the judiciary are small and have not changed for the past ten years," said Vukčević.
Montenegro and all countries in the region, he believes, should also work on this.
"We have been talking about the so-called The Palace of Justice, as if it is a project of 300 or 400 million euros, and we can't even see a public call for a conceptual solution. This is, among other things, because it does not suit the political elite, previous and present, to have a strong and independent judiciary," said Vukčević.
He assessed that Prime Minister Spajić's recent statement about "shameful verdicts" is inappropriate and that it discourages all those who have the idea of being judges and prosecutors, and said that citizens' trust in the judiciary, which is now very shaken, must be restored.
Speaking about SKY encrypted communication, Vukčević said that the Montenegrin courts must answer whether the SKY application is evidence or not.
"It would be good if we get that answer as soon as possible," he underlined.
Vukčević believes that Montenegro has regressed in terms of transparency.
"We had a handful of laws that were adopted without public discussions, the EC also pointed to that in its report," he reminded.
Vanja Bajović, a professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade, assessed that, when it comes to the rule of law, the key challenges are corruption, partitocracy and the dependence of the judiciary.
"I get the impression, as a citizen of Serbia, that democracy and rule of law are political platitudes that every government refers to until the moment it comes to power. The moment he gets power, it gets twisted," said Bajović.
She said that whistleblowers are not protected in any case in Serbia, but that they "be punished for their contribution and removed".
"When you say corruption, it seems, at first glance, like an abstract term. Corruption is silent and imperceptible until the moment it begins to take human victims, which, unfortunately, we are witnessing in BiH and Serbia as well," said Bajović.
According to her, the system of partitocracy means the arrival of the eligible, not the capable, and the collapse of the education system contributed to this to a large extent.
"We have a situation where private colleges have become colleges for the education of political personnel. We have a constant purchase of diplomas and a number of incompetent personnel who have occupied the institutions, and thus the incompetence is paying off. The point is that we have a series of affairs that do not receive a judicial epilogue, the recipe has been tried and tested - an affair replaces an affair, the previous one is forgotten and so we go round and round," Bajović added.
According to her, the dependence of the judiciary is also reflected in inequality before the law.
"Now citizens expect responsibility for Ribnikar, for the tragedy in Novi Sad. No one takes responsibility, because they are used to functioning according to the principle of political and judicial protection", said Bajović.
Citizens, as she said, do not see a way out of the vicious circle.
"As far as international actors are concerned, there is public indignation, which is visible, first of all, in the affair of stealing the election and Rio Tinto", stated Bajović, adding that public pressure is the only thing that has produced results so far.
Besa Arifi from the Faculty of Law of the University of Southeast Europe in North Macedonia indicated that the country had an interesting history of developing the concept of the rule of law, reminding that the failure to establish the rule of law leads to the pessimism of progressive citizens and the growth of other ideologies.
"In order for the rule of law to take root in North Macedonia and other countries in the Western Balkans, it is important that we support individuals who have integrity," said Arifi.
Answering the question of whether the settlement of the dispute with Greece was sufficient for progress on the European path, she recalled that North Macedonia was the first to sign the Stabilization and Association Agreement, received candidate status in 2005, and then progress stopped.
"The fact is that after that the citizens expected that we could get the green light to open negotiations, which, again, is far from the expectation that we would become a member of the EU. "The veto on the decision to open negotiations was a big blow and a wind at the back of the nationalists who said - here we did everything we could, but we got nothing," said Arifi.
Director of the Kosovo Law Institute, Ehat Miftaraj, said that the Government of Kosovo is failing to finalize the strategy for the fight against corruption, adding that this important document would show the determination and commitment of the executive power to solve the problem. He also stated that the previous drafts of that document were in conflict with various legal solutions.
Miftaraj also said that the Ministry of Justice of Kosovo has not adopted an action plan for the rule of law strategy.
He recalled that the Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest was also adopted in Kosovo, adding that there were cases where certain high-ranking officials held two, three, and even seven positions. "That law was adopted in 2019, and that was put on the road," Miftaraj said.
The executive director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Governance, Arijan Dirmishi, said that Albania has made a significant step forward in strengthening the rule of law, thanks to the judicial reform that began in 2015.
As he said, although indictments in cases of corruption should discourage those who decide to act in this way, the presence of corruption remains, which does not mean that the reform has not produced results, but that they are still limited.
He added that we must wait to assess whether this reform will increase public confidence in the system.
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