Rule of Law Initiative Programs - Kosovo

Legal Clinic Staff. 2006.

The fostering of well-prepared law graduates is necessary to the development and maintenance of an independent, efficient, effective, and accountable legal system. There is broad consensus among actors in the Kosovar justice system that legal education in Kosovo is in need of reform. The ABA concentrates its legal education reform work by pursuing the following overall activity areas:

 

Clinical Legal Education

The ABA initiated a clinical legal education program at the University of Pristina Law Faculty in 2005.  The legal clinic is designed to help students gain practical skills needed upon becoming practicing lawyers. Under expert supervision students are trained on client interviewing, problem solving, legal analysis and research, client counseling and communication, legal theory and strategy.  The coursework includes two hours per week of in-class lectures and six hours per week of work with a lawyer, judge, or prosecutor.

 

Students in the legal methodology course. November 2006.

Legal Methodology Course

In October 2006, the ABA and the University of Pristina Law Faculty piloted a course on legal methodology.  The course is designed to provide students with foundational legal skills such as critical thinking and analysis, legal research and writing, practical representation and advocacy skills, and professional ethics and responsibility. 

 

Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Course

The ABA Rule of Law Initiative is assisting the Pristina and the Mitrovica law faculties develop and introduce a new course on Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility. ABA ROLI will complete the Legal Ethics Handbook which will serve as a primer for a full course. In addition, the ABA will also be working with student leaders, faculty, and the academic administration to develop a student honor code. Download the Kosovo Legal Ethics Handbook (2008). Also available in Serbian and Albanian.

Legal Research and Writing Seminar

Legal Research and Writing Seminar is a new course developed by the ABA and Pristina Law Faculty. In recent years, the ABA has worked with the univeristy in developing new courses. This new course is part of ABA ROLI's technical assistance to the Prishtina Law Faculty.

 

Public Legal Education

The ABA has developed and begun implementing a public awareness program to increase public understanding of the legal system.  The program aims to inform individuals of their rights and how lawyers and the courts are responsible for enforcement. 

 

TeenLaw for Kosovo High School Students

TeenLaw is a course which introduces information about the Kosovo legal system to high school students and it was first introduced to Kosovo high schools by the American Bar Association/Kosovo in May.  Since then, the course has reached some 1500 high school students in Kosovo.

Among the subjects covered by the TeenLaw course are the court structure in Kosovo; what is law; the role of advocates, prosecutors and judges in society; and human rights.  

TeenLaw is taught in five main Kosovo regions, by ten law students, all of whom completed the ABA Legal Clinic at the University of Pristina law school in Kosovo.

Download the TeenLaw Manual (September 2007) | also available in Albanian.

 

Law and Human Rights Education

Books published in 2006 by the ABA and the Kosovo Education Center.

The ABA recently partnered with the Kosovo Education Center (KEC) to increase awareness among children and teachers of children's rights and the law.  Towards this end, the ABA and the KEC published three books to help teachers fill a gap in the existing school curriculum in civic and legal rights. The books, A Guide for Children's Rights Committees in Schools; a poetry and prose book - We are Flowers, We are Birds; and a book focused on children's rights – We Have No Vote, but We Do Have Our Rights; were published in Albanian and Serbian.

The ABA and the KEC also organized student visits with district, municipal, and juvenile court officers.  During these visits, students have the opportunity to meet with local judges and to ask them questions about their profession and the legal system.

 

 

Justice Kid, the first ever Kosovo-made cartoon hero, was developed to increase understanding of the law among the country's younger generations. 2006.

Public Service Announcements for Television

The ABA, in collaboration with the Kosovo Chamber of Advocates and the Kosovo Judges Association, produced three live-action and three animated PSAs for television.  The PSAs were broadcast in primetime by two national television stations and were made available through other media such as websites and audio/visual presentations in schools and community centers. 

Please click here to view the Justice Kid PSAs .

Please click here to read more about the Justice Kid PSAs.

 

For more information, please contact Laura Rakovica at lrakovica@ceelikosovo.org

Regulatory Bar & Chamber of Advocates Development

 

Regulatory Bar Research

ABA intends to Develop a Bar that regulates the practice of law so that competency and ethical standards are ensured. The ABA assesses the legal framework of the legal profession to identify the needs for regulating the Bar in Kosovo.

 

Establishing Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (CLE)

The ABA develops CLE courses and assists the KCA develop a practical and realistic CLE program for their members, including establishing a financial plan for sponsoring the program.

Bench-Bar Cooperation

Kosovo Bench-Bar brochure

In December 2007, ABA ROLI published a Bench-Bar brochure aimed at promoting the rule of law in Kosovo. The brochure represents a summary of thirty issues identified by Kosovo judges and attorneys during a series of roundtable discussions organized in five Kosovo regions.

Approximately 250 Kosovo lawyers and judges participated in identifying the issues summarized in the brochure. This process also marked long discussions among representatives of the Kosovo Bench and Bar organizations.

The discussions began in December 2005 and ended in June 2007.  In December 2005, then ABA President, Michael Greco, launched Kosovo's first bench-bar roundtable.  Since then, the Kosovo Judges Association and the Kosovo Chamber of Advocates formed a joint bench-bar working group that established a forum for ongoing cooperation. The ABA continues to act in an advisory capacity. 

The Bench-Bar brochure which is available to all Kosovo justice sector stakeholders provides a current overview of the main challenges faced by judges and attorneys.

The brochure will help institutions such as the Bench and Bar organizations, Provisional Institutions of Self-Governance (PISG), United Nation Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), and all other stakeholders in the justice sector. The brochure will also provide the Kosovo public with a more vivid understanding of the challenges faced by Judges and Lawyers. The publication will also serve as an information source about every aspect of Bench-Bar experience and the concerns faced in day-to-day work in Kosovo courts. Solving these issues, in fact, will have an impact on judicial independence, legal work and social issues.

The ABA made hardcopies of this brochure accessible to all Kosovo attorneys, judges, prosecutors and other stakeholders.

Download the Kosovo Bench-Bar Brochure. The brochure is also available in Serbian and Albanian.

For more information, please contact office@ceelikosovo.org.

 

Kosovo Chamber of Advocates

Kosovo legal officials working with the ABA's programs.

The ABA has been working with the Kosovo Chamber of Advocates (KCA) since 2000, to build organizational capacity and to encourage them to assume an active role in the development of the legal profession in Kosovo.  In that time, the KCA has made significant progress.  The ABA is working with the KCA to improve their public advocacy and lobbying capabilities and to assume a more active and prominent role in the discourse among institutions involved in legal reform.  To this end, the KCA has joined forces with organizations such as Kosovo Judges Associations (KJA) to promote and defend a strong, fair, effective and independent legal and justice system in Kosovo, and to focus and intensify their efforts to become more effective forces for change.

The KCA, through its Legal Ethics and Discipline Committee, and with the ABA's assistance, has modernized the KCA Code of Ethics, and has nearly completed refinements to correct inconsistencies and clarify certain provisions.  The ABA is assisting the KCA to evaluate different models for a more effective disciplinary system.  

In addition, the ABA and the KCA are in the preliminary stages of a new recruitment campaign targeting women and minorities. 

 

Revising the KCA’s Code of Ethics

Snapshot of the Kosovo Chamber of Advocates Code of Ethics. View the complete document

ABA ROLI provided legal and technical support to the Kosovo Chamber of Advocates Ethics Committee for a new disciplinary model and ethics code. ABA ROLI’s support for this reform included a study visit to Ireland for eight members of the Kosovo Chamber of Advocates’ (KCA) Ethics and Discipline Committee. The visit served as a basis for developing a new and functional disciplinary system for the group.

Our programs in Kosovo are continuously supporting KCA’s reforms of the disciplinary model. To this end ABA ROLI gave attorneys and lay members of the KCA’s Disciplinary Committee a rare glimpse into a mock disciplinary hearing held by the New Mexico Disciplinary Board.

In addition to this work, ABA ROLI conducted and organizational assessment of the KCA to identify the Chamber’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as areas where ABA’s assistance can be the most useful.

 

Kosovo Judges Association

Ymer Huruglica, KJA President and Rafet Haxha, Editor in Chief of the KJA Bulletin, at a training on publishing. November 2006.

Founded in 2001, the KJA is striving to firmly establish itself in the legal community and has begun to realize its potential in the last year.  The ABA is working with the KJA to further develop its fundraising strategy; to expand advocacy strategies for judicial reform; and to recruit women and minorities as members.

Previously, the ABA assisted the KJA leadership in updating the organization's mission statement and strategic plan.  The revised strategic plan focuses on harmonizing the KJA's work on judicial independence, accountability, and integrity with that of other actors in the legal and justice sectors.  The ABA assisted the KJA in establishing relationships with other judges' associations in Central Europe in order to gather best practices on issues such as funding, member activities, outreach, publications, ethics, advocacy, lobbying, and judicial salaries.

The KJA has already taken steps towards improving its outreach capabilities.  With the ABA's support, the KJA Editorial Board has produced several issues of its Bulletin and continuously enhances its content, which simultaneously raises the profile of the KJA as an institution and disseminates information about legal developments. 

The KJA's judicial praktikant program for law school graduates grew in 2006 and will continue to play a critical role in developing the capacity of the judiciary. 

 

Supporting Women and Minorities

Participants at the June 2007 “Women in Law in Kosovo” conference

The ABA Rule of Law Initiative directly supports the Gender and Minority Committee of the Kosovo Chamber of Advocates (KCA) through different projects. The ABA’s goal is to assist Kosovar women and minorities in attaining equality in the legal profession.

In this regard, ABA/ROLI recently organized two major events. In June 2007, the ABA organized a conference titled “Women in Law in Kosovo.” At this event, Kosovo women lawyers and legal professionals discussed the main obstacles young female law graduates encounter when starting off in the legal profession. The importance of having a mentoring network in place to help young women was one of the highlights of the conference.  In December 2007, the ABA in cooperation with the KCA Gender and Minority Committee also sponsored and organized a planning meeting for developing a strategy to increase the participation of women in the Kosovo legal system.

The ABA has also been working with the KCA since April 2007 to develop a series of seminars to be conducted each year for new law graduates from the Mitrovica law faculty. These seminars will provide the graduates with the knowledge necessary to work in the Kosovo legal system. The Mitrovica law faculty adopted the same curriculum in effect at the University of Belgrade in Serbia. As such, the core courses all address applicable Serbian law, such as Serbian civil procedure and Serbian criminal procedure. Students in Mitrovica are not provided any instruction in applicable Kosovo laws or in the fundamentals of the Kosovo judiciary structure. As a result of this, students and graduates considering the possibility of remaining in Kosovo and becoming practicing lawyers, future judges or prosecutors face many obstacles. These students lack knowledge including how to register for the Kosovo Bar Exam, how to apply to become a judge in Kosovo, and the process of filing a claim in a Kosovo court. The ABA is developing a program with the KCA to fill this gap. This program will include courses in Kosovo civil and criminal procedure, court visits, and Kosovo property law. Seminars have already been held and were well-received in Mitrovica and in the Gjilan region.