From 17 November until the first week of December 2023, the Kosovo Judicial Council has organized its annual program “Days of the Judiciary” with the support of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. The Days of the Judiciary were attended by members of the Kosovo Judicial Council, presidents of Kosovo courts, supervising judges of the courts, court administrators and international organizations which actively support the Kosovo rule of law. Overall discussions focused on the challenges of the courts, justice reforms, and cooperation of the judicial system with development partners.

Representatives from the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) took part in the Days of the Judiciary by presenting in three separate sessions the Mission’s work to assist the Kosovo judiciary in making the rule of law system more accountable, transparent, and efficient, through both EULEX’s robust judicial monitoring and justice monitoring reporting activities.

On 17 November, the EULEX’s Acting Head of Monitoring Pillar, Hubert van Eck Koster, presented the unique mandate of the Mission, which enables EULEX to perform a robust monitoring of the entire criminal justice chain - on police, prosecutorial and judicial level – in order to support the improvement of Kosovo’s justice system.

In his speech van Eck Koster pointed out that, while the Kosovo justice system still faces multiple challenges, some progress has been monitored in areas such as processing of many high-profile cases, cooperation between the Kosovo Police and the Special Prosecution Office in dealing with terrorism cases, and in the functioning of the Case Management Information System in the Kosovo courts.

On 24 November, van Eck Koster gave an in-depth presentation about the Mission’s robust judicial monitoring and justice monitoring reporting activities, which have resulted in the publication of three Justice Monitoring Reports and several special reports.

On 1 December, the EULEX’s Justice Monitor, Heidi Heggdal, presented some among the Mission’s key findings and recommendations on various issues and challenges in criminal cases that affects the efficiency of the judiciary.