The new law on salaries in the public sector, which was approved by the Kosovo Assembly in February 2023 and reduces the percentage of the bonus based on work experience for the first 15 years, has harmed over 90 thousand public officials and endangers the state budget, according to a report by the Kosovo Institute for Law (IKD). KosovaPress.

Senior researcher at IKL, Gzim Shala, during the presentation of the report, said that public officials have the right to seek compensation in court for this.

Shala added that this law also damages the state budget to the tune of 35 million euros.

"The failure to implement the Constitutional Court's judgment is a violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo itself. In this situation we are in, it is normal for public officials to have the right to seek [compensation] for the damage caused to them...9:10 The inaction of the Assembly, in addition to overloading the judiciary and violating the rights of public officials, will also damage the budget of the Republic of Kosovo, with a value of approximately 35 million euros.", said Shala, reports KosovaPress.

Meanwhile, according to the coordinator of the PDK Justice Department, Përparim Gruda, the Assembly is not implementing the Constitutional verdict, not due to a lack of legal or technical possibilities, but because "their leader does not want to do such a thing."

"Violations of the Constitution and the non-implementation of the decisions of the Constitutional Court are not isolated cases, it is something that has described the entire work of this government in the last four years. We should say formally that the Assembly does not implement it, but the truth is that the Assembly does not implement it, because the one who is the leader of the majority does not want to implement it. It is unimaginable that the decisions of the Constitutional Court in a democratic country are neglected, not implemented, because they are constitutional norms", Gruda added.

Meanwhile, Armend Zemaj, a member of several legislatures in the Assembly, stated that in this way, the constitutional damage could continue.

"This is not the only decision that had to be changed as a constitutional obligation in laws that have been found to violate the constitution, this is one of the decisions because there have been other laws where this six-month period was requested and the government has only improvised it. In the situation we are in, if the logic is the same, the constitutional and public damage can continue indefinitely.", emphasized Zemaj, followed by KosovaPress.

IKL calls for this issue to be addressed urgently after the constitution of the ninth legislature and for the Law on Salaries in the Public Sector to be amended.

This, according to the KLI, would guarantee the level of work experience payment at 0.5 percent, and that the extension of this payment according to the Constitutional Court's ruling should be from February 1, 2024./KosovaPress

/Kosovapress/