The decisions taken by the High Prosecutorial Council (KLP) during the plenary meeting of October 25 confirm that the judiciary governance institution intends to promote 8 prosecutors to the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecution within 30 days, before the end of November.
The decision to push ahead with the establishment of SPAK without the required number of 10 prosecutors was taken after intense international and national political pressure.
The KLP will promote Altin Dumani, Arben Kraja, Klodian Braho, Enkeleda Millonaj, Edvin Kondili, Ened Nakuçi, Elida Kaçkini, and Behar Dibra as the first members of SPAK. These 8 members will then elect Chief Special Prosecutor with a mandate of 3 years. It will be up to the Chief Special Prosecutor to then initiate the procedure to complete the SPAK to fulfill the minimum Constitutional requirement of 10 prosecutors.
Last week, KLP Chair Gent Ibrahimi was careful to distinguish between “nominating” prosecutors to SPAK and “establishing” SPAK:
Today, we arrived at the conclusion that the establishment with 8 or with 10 members is not up to us. We are nominating the prosecutors for SPAK, we don’t take the decision on the creation of SPAK. We don’t violate the Constitution for the establishment of SPAK with 8 members.
Even though SPAK will not be de jure established by the KLP, the further actions planned by the KLP suggest that it will be established de facto.
The KLP will cancel the temporary transfers of prosecutors nominated to the Serious Crimes Prosecution, while the remaining prosecutors will be nominated to other prosecution offices. As the KLP explicitly states:
It has to be emphasized that with the beginning of the work of the Special Prosecution the Serious Crimes Prosecution stops functioning.
It should, however, be pointed out that the SPAK can only “begin work” once it has reached its Constitutional quorum, which will necessarily only be after the meeting at which SPAK constitutes itself.
The timing of this entire transformation of the Serious Crimes Prosecution into SPAK, therefore, is of the utmost importance. At the same time, the KLP will have to coordinate with the High Judicial Council that the Special Anti-Corruption Courts are established at precisely the same time as SPAK.
SPAK will start its work with considerably less personnel than the current Serious Crimes Court, and will face a substantial backlog of cases. At the same time, the SPAK will have to start the process to establish the National Investigation Bureau, the FBI-style court police force that is designed to operate outside the political influence.
