Kosovo Democratic Institute conducted an assessment of the work of Assembly for the first seven months of the present year, although the assessment in question may be considered as an annual assessment having in mind that for the first five months the legislature was dysfunctional due to the political stalemate. The present assessment is based on the effectiveness of the Assembly’s work and its transparency.

Grand coalition in numbers: The recent political stalemate resulted in a coalition agreement between the two biggest political parties in the country, PDK and LDK including the political entities from the non-majority communities. Although the governing coalition has a qualified majority with over 85 MPs, it appears that the numerical value is not being translated into political power to make important decisions at the Assembly of Kosovo. In the first instance when the coalition was challenged, it failed to secure the necessary 2/3 of votes for the constitutional amendments. 

Dynamics of law adoption: During its spring session, the Assembly had foreseen the adoption of 55 draft laws, whilst the Government submitted another 8 draft laws that were not foreseen by the legislative agenda. More than the half of these 63 draft laws was amendments and supplementation of existing laws (35 of them).

Approximately 65% of the foreseen draft laws were submitted to the Assembly. However to date, and in both readings, only 16 laws have been adopted or less than a fourth of the draft laws (a draft law, the one interception was rejected and the resubmitted for adoption). About 40% (or 25 draft laws) are in the procedure of review with the parliamentary committees.

It is to be noted that compared to the first months of the year, recently there is an increased work dynamics by the Assembly of Kosovo in the context of lawmaking and completion of the Boards of Independent Agencies.   

Haste in adopting the state budget for 2015: Haste to adopt such an important document, such as the state budget, was observed in the Assembly on both occasions: first when it was adopted by the end of the last year, and now during the review period. The process was characterized by a deviation from the Assembly’s rules of procedures, whereas the rush to review the budget is a result of the demands by the International Monetary Fund. The abovementioned practice is leaving the most representative institution in the country with very few powers to review the budget, while it has resulted with many complaints by MPs who are unable to examine and discuss in details the content and amendments to the state budget.   

Parliamentary questions: Out of 218 parliamentary questions by the MPs for the Government ministers, only in 48% of them did they receive a respective reply. Most parliamentary questions were addressed to the health sector, i.e. Minister Imet Rrahmani. He responded only to 22 out 38 questions addressed to him.

Frequent deviations from Assembly’ Rules of Procedures: The urgency of the Government of Kosovo to submit draft laws in a fast-tracked procedure has become frequent. This inadequate parliamentary practice of deviating from the Assembly’s rules of procedure has started to be installed as a regular culture of work at the Assembly of Kosovo. The adoption of laws in a fast-tracked procedure (by deviating from the rules of procedure) has hindered the genuine review of legislation and lastly is resulting in laws and documents with enormous shortcomings in their content and thus rendering them impossible to materialize in practice.         Incompletion of Boards of Independent Agencies: Neglect by the Government of Kosovo in proposing members for the steering boards of the Agencies, in order to make such structures functional, still remains a challenge. On the other hand, there is no pressure exerted by the Assembly to consider these issues as urgent. Despite the increased dynamics by the Assembly in the context of filling board positions, 6 agencies remain with incomplete boards, two of which have no boards at all as result of expired mandate or non-constitution since their establishment. Incomplete steering bodies result with a lack of a quorum for decision-making, something that has rendered these institutions dysfunctional.

Non-adoption of the Assembly’s rules of procedure: Even though the work to adopt new rules of procedure for the Assembly of Kosovo began at the outset of the last legislature, the institution still has not managed to adopt the most basic document that provides how the Assembly of Kosovo should function. The adoption of such a document is an obligation in order to avoid many normative ambiguities that the Assembly has faced during its work.

 

Transparency

E-parliament: Although few important steps have been undertaken towards transparency of the Assembly, E-parliament has stalled as a result of withdrawing this year’s budget for this project. The Assembly has worked three years to prepare and implement E-parliament and this year, even though the project was in its final stage prior to implementation, the Assembly and Government decided to withdraw the budget line envisaged for this extremely important project for the performance, effectiveness and transparency of the institution in question.

Lack of transparency on the dialogue with Serbia: The Assembly of Republic of Kosovo, in its plenary session held on 10 March 2011, adopted a special resolution (no. 04-R-001) on the dialogue between the Republic of Kosovo and Republic of Serbia. However the course of the process has taken dimensions that violate the resolution as well as the right of the people’s representatives to be informed and to debate about the process. 

Item 6 of the resolution provides as in the following: the person appointed by the Prime Minister as a head of the delegation of Republic of Kosovo for dialogue with Republic of Serbia should inform on regular basis the Committee on Foreign Policy and other respective committees of the Assembly of Kosovo and should, also, report during the plenary sessions of the Assembly of Kosovo.

Notwithstanding the obligations deriving from the resolution, the Assembly of Kosovo-as the country’s highest institution- is the last one to be informed on the implementation of the agreements achieved. As a result, oftentimes there is ambiguity and there is a lack of an official assessment about the implementation of these agreements in practice.

Government of Kosovo must comply by the resolution in its entirety and following each meeting at the Prime ministers’ level in Brussels it must report to the Assembly, and the Assembly should be involved in a democratic debate on the eventual political and legal consequences of all agreements struck and those that are to be signed in the future.

Positive development

·         Increased work dynamics by the Assembly;

·         Establishment of a working group on parliamentary transparency and co-operation with civil society;

·         Requests for parliamentary research increased in order to serve well-informed decision-making;

·         Assembly Presidency meetings are accessible to the public; and

 

·         Publication of expenditure reports of the Assembly, even though not in a detailed form.