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Will the sentence of former KLA fighters be expunged by dissolving the Kosovo Special Court in The Hague?!

2026-09-16 14:10:47Fokus SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Will the sentence of former KLA fighters be expunged by dissolving the Kosovo
Jakup Krasniqi/ Kadri Veseli/ Hashim Thaçi/ Rexhep Selimi

Today's decision by the Specialist Chambers in The Hague against former KLA leaders has brought back the debate in Kosovo over whether the Assembly can intervene to abolish the Specialist Court.

Hashim Thaçi was sentenced in the first instance to 25 years in prison, Jakup Krasniqi to 25 years, Kadri Veseli to 18 years and Rexhep Selimi to 13 years. All four were found guilty of four counts of war crimes, while they were found not guilty of six counts of crimes against humanity. The decisions are not final and can be appealed.

But could the Kosovo Assembly “dissolve” the Court and, if so, would the convicted persons be automatically released? From a review of the Constitution of Kosovo, Law 05/L-053 and the Kosovo-Netherlands agreement, the answer is more complicated.

The Specialist Chambers are part of the Kosovo legal system and their basis is directly inserted into the Constitution through Amendment No. 24 and Article 162. The Constitution gives them the authority to try, detain and even serve sentences outside Kosovo, as well as to administer remaining cases even after the end of their mandate.

Precisely for this reason, the mere repeal of Law 05/L-053 by the Assembly would not be enough to eliminate the constitutional basis of the Court. Article 162 would continue to be part of the Constitution.

If the aim were to change or repeal Article 162, the procedure for amending the Constitution would have to be followed.

According to Article 144, the proposal can be made by the Government, the President or at least a quarter of the deputies. For approval, two-thirds of all 120 deputies are required, i.e. at least 80 votes, and at the same time two-thirds of the deputies holding the 20 seats guaranteed for non-majority communities — practically at least 14 of them. Before the vote, the amendment must be sent to the Constitutional Court for preliminary review if it violates the rights and freedoms of Chapter II.

The Law on the Specialist Chambers expressly provides that the institutions, files, archives and functions of the Court are protected from interference, including by legislative action. It also provides for a residual mechanism, which may continue to administer cases after all decisions have become final.

So, there is no provision in the law according to which the closure of the institution automatically cancels the criminal decisions it has issued.

In the current situation, the direct path provided by the law is Appeal. The Appeals Panel can uphold the decision, change it or overturn it. The law provides that, as a rule, the convicted person remains in custody during the appeal hearing, unless the panel decides otherwise.

After a final decision, there are also exceptional legal remedies, including reopening the proceedings in certain circumstances and requesting exceptional mitigation of the sentence. But the law excludes another possibility that exists for those convicted by ordinary Kosovo courts: the President of Kosovo cannot pardon persons convicted by the Specialist Chambers. The length of the sentence can only be changed by the Specialist Chambers themselves or by their residual mechanism.

In 2017, there was a similar political effort, when 43 members of the Assembly launched an initiative to repeal the Law on Specialist Chambers. The European Union publicly opposed that initiative, arguing that Kosovo had assumed international obligations for the functioning of the Court.

The Assembly could attempt to amend the law and the Constitution, but such a process would require a constitutional majority, prior constitutional control and would face provisions linking the end of the mandate to notification by the EU Council. Even the closure of the Court, according to the mechanism envisaged today, does not automatically annul its decisions nor does it create an obligation for the Netherlands to release the convicted.

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