On 7 November, The assembly passed the new law on NGO’s with last minute changes that risk the well-functioning of the non-governmental sector. Around 80 organizations of civil society requested from the Presidency to return the legislation on the assembly, issue that happened on 23 November. Currently Assembly is going to discuss on the functional and plenary session.
The main problem of the enacted legislation has to do with violations of the main principle of this sector, that of the not for profit, which says that every revenue and wealth of the NGO ought to be used solely for full filing the organization mission.
Opposed to this principle, the amended dispositions allow the NGO wealth to be transferred to other institutions including private businesses.
Beyond the chance to convey the wealth of NGOs to the private sector, if this dispositions does not change, it would be a prevention of the necessary legal guarantee for the donors so their donations might be possibly misused for non for profit purposes. The new disposition does not comply with the Constitutional Court Decision KO 97/12 that reviewed law on banks related to the initiation of allowing the transformation of the microfinance nongovernmental organization.
Also, highly problematic is the basis for NGO termination from non-solvent to inactive. Non solvency is the inability to do payments, whereas the inactivity is a non-financial concept that is not defined neither in Kosovar legislation nor in the international practices.
The interpretation of inactivity as basis for termination produces direct opportunities for arbitrary decisions related to NGO termination and risks the constitutional right for free association. Other problems are mainly related to difficulties to establish and register NGO and violation of the public benefit status.
Thus, organizations of civil society require from the Parliamentary committee for public administration, respectively the assembly of Kosovo to approve the law on NGOs according to requirements of civil society precisely amendments proposed from the Presidency.