Agreement on the Integration of the Judiciary

Agreement within the framework of technical dialogue
Date of signing: February 9, 2015

Agreement status:
The agreement has been fully implemented

Parties / delegations

Marko Đurić
Head of the negotiating team of the Government of Serbia

Federica Mogherini
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

Edita Tahiri
Minister of Dialogue and head of the Kosovo * negotiating team

Officials

Tomislav Nikolic
President of Serbia

Aleksandar Vucic
Prime Minister of Serbia

Atifete Jahjaga
President of Kosovo *

Isa Mustafa
Prime Minister of Kosovo *

Background:

This Agreement ensures the integration of parallel Serbian judicial authorities with Kosovo’s system.

According to the First Agreement, the integration of judicial institutions was supposed to be completed by the end of 2013. This, however, did not happen, which gave rise to a vacuum in functioning of the judicial institutions, with the entire year 2014 marked as the year of stagnation in implementation of the Brussels Agreement.

The Agreement from February 2015 envisages a single judicial system, i.e. one basic court, a chamber of appellate court and one basic prosecutorial office for the entire Mitrovica region.

Criminal case files are supposed to be adjudicated in courtrooms in the North (Northern Mitrovica), whereas the civic litigation procedures shall be conducted in courtrooms of the South (Southern Mitrovica).
Court president and chief prosecutor, according to the agreement, shall come from different ethnic communities, with an Albanian chief prosecutor and a Serb court president. The number of judges and administrative staff shall commensurate with the size and structure of population in that part of Kosovo.

The essential points of the agreement

Implemented

When appointing the integrated judges, Serbia should dismiss the same judges and prosecutors and stop paying their salaries.

Implemented

The judicial authorities in North Kosovo shall be integrated with Kosovo’s legal system.

Implemented

There shall be one basic court and one basic prosecutorial office, with the basic court using two offices, one in Northern Mitrovica and the other in Southern Mitrovica.