Kosova Democratic Institute (KDI) held a press conference today to unveil the evaluation report on the work of the Kosovo Assembly during the spring session, covering January to July 2024.

Violeta Haxholli, the project manager, stated that the Assembly’s activity declined during this session, emphasizing that no sessions were organized for a total of 13 working weeks. From January to the end of July, the Assembly held 29 sessions, 10 of which were plenary sessions, while 7 of these sessions were continued due to the lack of a quorum. Additionally, 6 extraordinary sessions and 6 ceremonial sessions were held.

Despite KDI’s continuous recommendations for better and more rational work planning, the agenda for all regular sessions was overloaded and never fully addressed. As a result, agenda items were carried over from session to session. The main reason for the failure to complete the agenda was the lack of the necessary quorum. In this session alone, MPs were absent 525 times, or an average of 24.3% of MPs were absent per session.

Haxholli added that a total of 36 draft laws were approved during the session, a lower number compared to the same session last year, when 44 draft laws were approved. In percentage terms, the Assembly’s agenda was fulfilled by 28%. Of the 36 draft laws approved, only 3 were part of the executive’s legislative agenda for 2024, meaning that less than 1% of the Government’s 2024 legislative agenda was approved during this session. The other draft laws that were approved had been in procedure for years.

The approval of draft laws was accompanied by a non-uniform and unbalanced dynamic. For example, in the first three months of the spring session, only 2 draft laws were approved, while in the following three months, 34 others were approved. On the other hand, 44 draft laws remain in procedure, including 22 draft laws from the Government’s 2024 agenda.

Although there were fewer cases of non-parliamentary language used in sessions, the situation was different in committee meetings, particularly in investigative committee meetings. In many cases, MPs addressed each other with offensive language.

Regarding parliamentary oversight, Haxholli added that during this session, the Prime Minister was not invited to report, and no interpellations were organized. However, MPs submitted 110 questions to the Government, although the number of questions was lower compared to the spring session of the previous year. Questions were repeated several times due to the lack of responses from ministers, leading to an increase in the number of questions submitted. The Government generally provided only 33 responses, while Prime Minister Kurti, who was asked questions 36 times, and some cabinet ministers, such as Minister Xhelal Sveçla, Minister Arbërie Nagavci, and Minister Rozeta Hajdari, did not provide any answers. Minister Hekuran Murati provided only two responses, despite being asked questions 28 times.

Haxholli also spoke about the main topics during this session, highlighting the discussions on the Draft Law on the Independent Media Commission, the new Draft Law on the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council following the Constitutional Court’s ruling, and the completion of the drafting of the Code of Conduct by the Committee on Legislation, which is still awaiting final approval in a session.

The work of the 14 parliamentary committees during the spring session was framed in a total of 193 meetings, which included public hearings and oversight hearings. Meanwhile, the investigative committees held 36 meetings. The committees invited executive representatives to report 15 times, averaging one report per committee.

During the session, work continued on restoring the electronic voting system after it had been out of order for more than three years. This led to “hand” voting in this session as well, which in some cases cast doubt on the accurate counting of votes. On the other hand, some committees continued to fail to publish minutes and transcripts from committee meetings, as required by the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure. Furthermore, the Assembly continued not to publish any information related to the meetings of ad-hoc and investigative committees.

As the autumn session begins, KDI calls on the Assembly to avoid the shortcomings that characterized the spring session and previous sessions, with proper planning of sessions and organizing sessions every week, regular participation of MPs in the Assembly’s work, increased oversight of the executive, a more active role of the Speaker of the Assembly in enforcing the Rules of Procedure, and ensuring the Assembly’s transparency to the public.

The Assembly should also approve the Code of Conduct for MPs during the autumn session, which has been awaiting final approval for several months.

You can find the full report on KDI’s official website and the Vota Ime platform.

This report is the result of research conducted as part of the project “Youth and Civil Society for Integrity,” funded by the Swedish Government. The content of this report is the sole responsibility of the Kosova Democratic Institute and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Swedish Government.

The data and analyses in this report are derived from the systematic physical and electronic monitoring of the Assembly’s work by KDI monitors.