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Concerns over Kosovo Constitution

14 February 2008 Pristina _ Kosovo’s civil society institutions have expressed their unease over the new constitution, blaming government bodies for manipulating the public debate about it.

“This is not a democratic process,” Alban Bokshi from the non-governmental organisation Cohu (Wake up!) said at a discussion forum on Wednesday, and accused the drafters of the constitution of “grossly misleading ” the public.

Speaking at an event organised by the US-based educational body, IREX, Bokshi argued that the debates staged by official institutions had been held in “a silent way”, and most of the time the audiences were made up of “staff from municipal offices” who said nothing of interest.

The officially-organised two-week-long public debate was launched at the end of January, with meetings around most of Kosovo’s municipalities, to discuss the constitution of what is about to become the world’s newest state.

Ismet Kryeziu from another NGO, the Democratic Institute of Kosovo, questioned the credibility of the Constitutional Commission, wondering why it was that Prime Minister Hashim Thaci had said that “the draft constitution is completed,” while the Commission’s members claimed “it is not finished yet”.

There has been extensive criticism of the debate in Kosovo’s media, not least because the text of the draft constitution has not been released.

Also on Wednesday the international human rights organisation Amnesty International issued a statement, saying that “the people of Kosovo must be consulted and provided with sufficient time and opportunity to make comments”.
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At the IREX debate, members of the Constitutional Commission focused on the political aspects of the draft, and explained that it will be based on the blueprint proposed by the former UN envoy for Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, a year ago.

Kosovo is expected to declare its independence from Serbia on Sunday, and the new constitution is due to be adopted before the independence declaration enters into force in March.

This article was originally published by Balkan Insight, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.