Attachment 1_ SOO Justice Activity.pdf

SOL#72016720R00004

Statement of Objectives (SOO) for Justice Activity in Kosovo

Acronym List

ADR Alternative Dispute Resolution

AWP Annual Work Plan

CDCS Country Development Cooperation Strategy

COR Contract Officer’s Representative

EU European Union

FLAA Free Legal Aid Agency

FRRLS Functional Review of the Rule of Law Sector

GoK Government of Kosovo

JSSP Justice System Strengthening Program

KJC Kosovo Judicial Council

MEL Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning

MOJ Ministry of Justice

TOC Theory of Change

SSA Stabilization and Assistance Agreement

USAID United States Agency for International Development

C.1 TITLE OF ACTIVITY

Justice Activity

C.2 GOAL

The goal of the Justice Activity is a more responsive justice system capable of providing people access to quality services and multiple means to solve their justice needs and every day legal problems to generate greater public trust in the justice system and the rule of law.

C.3 DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE

In the last two decades, Kosovo has made significant progress in promoting the rule of law and establishing a justice system for the entire country and all Kosovo citizens, including those in the north of the country and other non-majority localities. With regards to the judiciary, the Kosovo Judicial Council functions as an institution of self governance and administration of justice. The courts are unified and now entirely staffed by local judges. Backlog reduction has proceeded apace, with increased clearance rates and publication of court decisions. Moreover, a system of free legal aid has been established, one complemented and supported by an independent bar, the advent and evolution of the free legal professions, including private enforcement agents, mediators, notaries, and bankruptcy administrators, and ongoing work of justice-oriented civil society organizations.

However, fundamental challenges continue to impede the realization of a well-functioning justice system and the delivery of quality justice services to all those in need. This ongoing situation constrains the development of the rule of law as a foundation to Kosovo’s journey to self-reliance and path toward a more just, prosperous, and cohesive society suitable for European integration.

These problems can be grouped into the following general categories:

Justice Needs and Legal Problems

Many Kosovo citizens continue to live outside the protection of the law or are otherwise unable to avail themselves of the justice system and justice service providers to protect their rights, resolve a dispute, or simply receive a legal document. Most common justice needs, and legal problems tend to involve disputes involving social welfare, labor, traffic accidents, public services, and property. Women, in particular, also identify domestic violence as the most serious problem they face.1 Barriers between justice seekers and justice providers are multifold. Geographic constraints can impede access to services for those in need, particularly for those living in rural communities, where courts, lawyers, and other justice providers tend to be absent, in limited supply, or poor quality. Even in urban centers such as Pristina, the courts can be inconveniently located and

1 See Attachment 7 & 8 in Section J of the RFP: Mapping of Community Justice Needs (2018 & 2019), USAID/Justice Matters Activity.

physically inaccessible. Also, the costs associated with court fees and legal services are an additional barrier to many of those with low incomes. Moreover, limited public knowledge of how courts work, where to access information or receive advice, and how to solve a legal problem prevails. At the same time, there is a need for a more uniform court practice and jurisprudence so that all citizens fully enjoy their rights to equality before the law and non-discrimination.

Language issues can also serve as a barrier for some communities. The result is a justice gap with a significant number of Kosovo citizens having unmet justice needs. Many others are not effectively equipped or empowered to make law and the justice system work for them in their daily lives.

Quality of Justice Services

Shortcomings in the justice system that have the greatest impact on citizens in their everyday lives often manifest in the delivery of services. The quality of justice services tends to be hampered at the court level by a number of factors. Despite improvements in recent years, ineffective leadership by court presidents and administrators along with ongoing reforms and restructuring, weak governance and administrative structures, planning processes, and resource allocation tools undermine efficient court administration and the performance of the judiciary as a whole, including the ping pong of cases emanating from the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. Still weak case flow management skills and underutilization of tools result in high disposition times and low clearance rates that exacerbate existing case backlogs. While the courts have made significant progress in case backlog reduction with the assistance of the USAID rule of law activities, there is still a need to institutionalize practices within the court to address these issues, particularly in the Basic Courts of Pristina and Mitrovica, to ensure efficiency. Limited internal communications within and between courts and between courts and other justice service providers, including the still nascent free legal professions, can also impede resolution of cases and justice problems. In addition, the absence of e-justice self-help tools, e.g. information kiosks, electronic filing, and chat bots, inhibit efficiency as well as transparency and user interaction. Similarly, the absence of customer service cultures and behavior, along with inadequate use of plain language in proceedings and documents, can also leave some court users feeling confused, alienated, without a solution, and ultimately dissatisfied with their experience.

Public Trust and Confidence in the Judiciary

Perceptions of the judiciary by the general public is low, although court users report greater confidence compared to the general public, as measured in public perception surveys. Reasons for the low perceptions of the judiciary tend to include perceived politicization of the judiciary and limited independence and accountability. Negative views tend to be influenced by controversial decisions and a prevailing sense of impunity when courts fail to hold government officials and influential actors accountable for violations of the law. Sometimes sensationalist and inaccurate media and civil society reporting about these cases in addition to delays, poor performance, and professional misconduct contribute to the maligning of the judiciary by society and politicians. For their part, courts do not effectively engage the communities they serve, with limited mechanisms for dialogue or feedback loops. Strategic communications and public information remain weak as the culture of information sharing and transparency remains a relatively new concept and developed practice. The general public, civil society organizations, the private sector and potential investors are not adequately aware of ongoing reforms and progress, and thus lack confidence in the judiciary. Moreover, few partnerships between the justice system, the courts and related service providers, and civil society organizations exist to improve transparency or identify how courts and the public can work together to improve services and to find solutions to local legal problems and justice needs.

C.4 THEORY OF CHANGE

The theory of change for this Activity is:

IF justice institutions and actors better understand the needs and problems of justice seekers and improve the quality and accessibility of the services they provide accordingly AND people have multiple means to resolve their justice needs and everyday legal problems AND the public is more aware of and actively engaged in how the justice system functions THEN public trust and use of the justice system will improve.

C.5 CORE OBJECTIVES

With this Activity, USAID will support a new era of rule of law promotion in Kosovo. Over the past two decades, USAID and other donor assistance, in partnership with a broad spectrum of local stakeholders, focused on building and strengthening the normative frameworks and institutions that are essential for an independent, efficient, and accountable justice system. Through this effort, Kosovo has achieved significant results and successes in creating a justice system for the entire country. Nevertheless, as described by the aforementioned problem sets, there are still areas for improvement. Kosovo’s justice institutions, despite significant capacity and organizational development, are underperforming. They are not effectively serving the citizens they are mandated to serve.

Thus, a need for new and innovative approaches exists. This Activity will therefore shift from a justice system institution strengthening paradigm that focuses primarily on building the fundamental elements for independence, efficiency, and accountability to a more people oriented and centered approach. These remain important characteristics of a well-functioning justice system as well as outcomes of reform and assistance, and this Activity will reinforce them. However, it will do so by applying a new paradigm that emphasizes putting people and their needs at the center of the justice system and focusing justice institutions and services to more effectively solve justice needs and unmet legal problems. Also by improving the quality of justice experiences and outcomes, and providing people with the means to access justice services and empowering them to know, use, and shape the law in order to affect how justice institutions ultimately should function to benefit society and strengthen the rule of law. USAID’s approach to applying this paradigm to the Kosovo context emphasizes improving the delivery of justice services by Kosovo’s core justice institutions and service providers and connecting them more effectively to the public. In this regard, the Activity’s primary focus is on the judiciary and courts, with attention also given to strengthening the provision of legal aid and related services. In addition, this Activity emphasizes interventions at the community level, where people tend to interact the most with justice service providers to address their everyday justice needs and legal problems.

The Objectives elaborated below seek to build upon the foundations to the rule of law put in place with the support of prior USAID assistance. In pursuing these Objectives, the Contractor will seek to consolidate earlier gains in rule of law promotion and justice system strengthening that were achieved most recently by the Justice System Strengthening Program (JSSP) and Justice Matters;

however, this Activity is not a continuation or a replication of either of these programs and their approaches. It is important to note that this Activity will not embed project staff in core justice institutions to perform the competencies and duties of staff employed by these institutions.

Capacity building interventions will instead take the form of mentoring, advising, and other forms of technical assistance.

The Contractor must present a technical approach with interventions that work towards the Objectives elaborated below and in the context of realizing a more people-centered justice system in Kosovo. In doing so, the Contractor must apply systemic, sustainable and locally owned capacity building approaches to improvements in justice reform and service delivery implementation. Interventions should be flexible, demand-oriented, data-driven and build upon consultations with all stakeholders, other donors, and USAID.

OBJECTIVE 1: Quality and Accessibility of Justice Services Improved

People-centered justice requires a well-functioning justice system capable of providing services that are responsive to the needs and problems of justice seekers and Kosovo society at large, inclusive of underserved, disadvantaged, and marginalized groups as well as non-majority communities. Through this Objective, the Activity will therefore focus on improving the quality and accessibility of justice services for all, with a primary focus on enhancing the performance and reach of courts and legal aid offices in providing justice services at the community levels throughout the entire country.

Interventions associated with this Objective will build upon and strengthen achievements made to date in this regard by core justice institutions and service providers, while also addressing gaps and weaknesses with innovative approaches and tools for improving accessibility and quality. In doing so, interventions will shift the focus of reform and assistance from a more inward looking institution-building and strengthening approach to a more outwardly looking service delivery improvement approach that puts people and solving their everyday justice needs and legal problems through more accessible and quality services at the forefront.

The people-centered service delivery improvement approach this Objective will introduce to improve quality will include interventions that facilitate proactive engagement of justice seekers by core justice institutions and service providers, i.e. courts and legal aid offices, to identify their justice needs and legal problems, understand their experiences and outcomes, and utilize this data to improve service delivery in areas of quality and accessibility. It will include interventions that strengthen quality assurance frameworks and standards by ensuring they not only set forth focused, clear, and actionable performance measures but also instill values and skills that reinforce people-centered, user-friendly, and solution-oriented conduct along with inclusive and non-discriminatory practices. In addition, it will emphasize fairness of processes and outcomes through introduction of procedural justice and “problem-solving court” tools and techniques. In order to positively impact justice seeker experience and outcomes, this approach will also institutionalize existing as well as new court administration and case management policies and practices to continue improving efficiencies and mitigating the back and forth “ping pong” of cases between basic courts and the Court of Appeal.

In addition to improving quality, the people-centered service delivery improvement approach will also introduce means to improve the accessibility of justice services. This will include expanding the reach of legal aid offices, increasing collaboration between justice and legal service providers, and facilitating multiple pathways to justice and dispute resolution at the grassroots level throughout Kosovo, with particular attention to addressing the justice needs and legal problems of underserved and marginalized groups. It will also support more holistic, multi-sectoral approaches to addressing the socio-economic and health implications of immediate justice needs and legal problems unmet over time. Although the focus of interventions that address this Objective must be oriented toward improving the quality and accessibility of justice services through capacity building and related technical assistance interventions at the community level, the Contractor must also work with key institutions and actors responsible for the administration of and access to justice services.

Under this objective, the Contractor must ensure that:

1. Justice institutions and service providers collect and use data on justice needs and legal problems to improve the quality and accessibility of justice services.

2. Justice, legal, and social service providers partner to remedy justice needs and improve user experiences and outcomes more holistically.

3. Problem-solving courts and specialized mechanisms utilized to remedy pressing or otherwise prominent grassroots justice needs and legal problems and prevent their reoccurrence.

4. Justice institutions and service providers institutionalize existing as well as new court administration and case management policies and practices to ensure cases are concluded in a timely manner and without undue delays.

The interventions and results associated with the introduction of a people-centered service delivery improvement approach in Objective 1 will be critical to improving the quality and accessibility of justice services for all Kosovo citizens. Moreover, they will contribute to improving citizen understanding, engagement, and trust in the justice system as described below in Objective 2. The Contractor therefore must elaborate how they will create linkages and reinforce complementarities between interventions and results associated with both Objectives 1 and 2, where appropriate. All interventions should be developed in a manner that builds local ownership, institutionalizes new and recent achievements and good practices, and ensures sustainability.

The Contractor is strongly encouraged to elaborate innovative interventions for achieving Objective 1 results consistent with a people-centered service delivery improvement approach.

They are also encouraged to propose additional approaches, interventions, and results associated with improving the quality and accessibility of justice services in Kosovo.

OBJECTIVE 2: Citizen Understanding, Engagement, and Trust of the Justice System Improved

People-centered justice requires effective citizen understanding, engagement, and trust of the justice system. This Objective will therefore facilitate and strengthen collaboration between core justice institutions and service providers, law enforcement, government authorities, civil society organizations and citizens in finding solutions to problems of critical concern to the public and individual justice seekers in Kosovo. It will also focus efforts to improve the transparency and accountability of core justice institutions and service providers by increasing opportunities for public scrutiny as well as opportunities for the public to contribute to more effective justice policies and practices both nationally and at a local level.

Like for Objective 1, interventions associated with this Objective will build upon and strengthen achievements made to date by core justice institutions and service providers to improve citizen understanding, engagement, and trust, while also addressing gaps and weaknesses in these areas with innovative approaches and tools. Interventions will also facilitate and strengthen the capabilities of civil society, local civic groups, the private sector, and citizens, including women and youth as well as members of non-majority communities and marginalized groups, to more effectively contribute to making the delivery of justice more people-centered also and strengthening the rule of law in Kosovo in partnership with core justice institutions and actors.

Through Objective 2 interventions, this Activity will focus assistance to improve public communication strategies, capabilities, skills, and tools of core justice institutions and service providers for the proactive engagement of media, civil society and civic groups, and the public at large on the mandates and work of their institutions, the services they provide, and how they can be engaged to address local needs and public priorities at the community level.

Objective 2 interventions will also facilitate the development and use two-way feedback mechanisms that link core justice institutions and service providers with civil society, civic groups, and citizens to collaborate in more effectively addressing public priorities in areas of justice, rights, and security. Through Objective 2 interventions, this Activity will also facilitate meaningful partnerships to undertake social auditing and citizen oversight of core justice institutions and service providers to facilitate public input and voice in shaping strategic planning, improving performance, enhancing accountability, and dealing with allegations of official misconduct and corruption within the justice system. In addition, this Objective will facilitate use of virtual platforms and communities of practice where the public can learn about as well as engage, debate, and collaborate with core justice institutions and service providers, government authorities, and other justice and rule of law promotion stakeholders in the design, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based justice policies and programs.

In undertaking Objective 2, the Contractor must work across the full spectrum of justice and rule of law promotion stakeholders in Kosovo to forge relationships, commitments, and capabilities for effective public communications and engagement, open justice, social accountability and citizen oversight, and collaboration in finding solutions to Kosovo’s justice and rule of law challenges.

While Objective 2 will focus interventions at community levels and the courts and legal aid offices operating there as well as local government officials, civil society organizations, and private sector, the Contractor must also work at the national level with key institutions and actors responsible for the administration of and access to justice services.

Under this objective, the Contractor must ensure that:

1. Justice institutions and service providers more effectively engage, inform, and dialogue with the public on local needs and priorities in areas of justice, rights, and security.

2. Open justice initiatives foster greater data transparency and public understanding of the functions and inner workings of justice institutions and service providers.

3. Performance of justice institutions and service providers improved through direct citizen feedback processes, oversight mechanisms, and collaborative problem-solving.

4. Civil society organizations actively monitor and effectively participate in justice reform processes at the local and national levels to represent citizen needs.

The interventions and results associated with Objective 2 will contribute to improving citizen understanding, engagement, and trust of the justice system, one capable of making quality justice services accessible to justice seekers and Kosovo society at large in order to effectively address their everyday justice needs and legal problems. Toward this end, and with potential synergies between Objectives 1 and 2 in mind, the Contractor therefore must elaborate how they will create linkages and reinforce complementarities between interventions and results associated with both Objectives, where appropriate. All interventions should be developed in a manner that builds local ownership, institutionalizes new and recent achievements and good practices, and ensures sustainability.

The Contractor is strongly encouraged to elaborate innovative interventions for achieving Objective 2 results consistent with the approach as outlined and its orientation toward public communications and engagement, open justice, social accountability and citizen oversight, and collaboration in finding solutions to Kosovo’s justice and rule of law challenges. They are also encouraged to propose additional approaches, interventions, and results associated with improving citizen understanding, engagement, and trust in the justice system of Kosovo.

OBJECTIVE 3: Effective innovations in the justice sector developed

The justice system in Kosovo lacks innovative approaches and tools for solving problems in the administration and access to justice. The Contractor must find and support ways to introduce or expand upon the best justice innovations. Justice innovations make systems more efficient and services more user friendly, but innovators do not immediately jump to solutions. The Contractor must seek to address the gaps in the justice system identified in Objectives 1 and 2 via establishment of a Justice Innovation Incubator.

Under this objective, the Contractor must ensure that:

1) Provide effective justice system innovations that put peoples’ needs and problems at the forefront.

2) Generate new ideas and introduce innovation in the justice sector to facilitate effective collaboration between justice institutions and service providers, judicial support organizations, civil society actors and academia, and the entrepreneurship community.

3) Ensure innovation is properly contextualized and looks at the scalability and sustainability of the innovation.

4) Emphasize the development of innovative approaches and solutions that improve the quality of justice of cases that go to the courts, increase people’s ability to understand the law and navigate the justice system, address unmet legal needs, and improve transparency and accountability.

C.6 ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT AND RAPID RESPONSE

The Contractor must respond rapidly to unforeseen rule of law challenges as they relate to the overall scope of the Activity’s goals, objectives, and intended results. This may include, but is not limited to:

1) Supporting the implementation of outcomes of the Functional Review of the Rule of Law Sector

(FRRLS),

2) Supporting efforts to implement the Law on Disciplinary Liability for Judges and Prosecutors and other public integrity initiatives.

3) Undertaking analytical, strategic communications, capacity building and other activities that advance the process and findings from the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index country study for Kosovo.

The Contractor must provide timely support as directed by USAID. The Contractor must keep abreast of situational changes on the ground and significant developments as they occur. In such cases, program interventions may be altered, with USAID approval, to seize new opportunities as long the reprogramming does not hold the USG to incurring an additional cost unless otherwise approved by USAID.

C.7 GUIDING PRINCIPLES

The Contractor must ensure that the following guiding principles steer the planning and implementation of this Activity:

● Justice Ecosystem Orientation: The Contractor must create linkages and reinforce complementarities between interventions and results associated with both Objectives 1 and 2, where appropriate. This means that the Contractor must adopt a justice ecosystem oriented approach, one that emphasizes and strengthens the relationships and interactions between the institutions, actors, networks, processes, tools, and incentive structures that collectively enable and empower people to make the law work for them in their daily lives, resolve disputes, remedy rights violations, and address other justice needs and legal problems. The Contractor must facilitate the interconnectedness amongst these institutions, actors, etc. in order to strengthen the quality and accessibility of varied justice and justice-related services, e.g.

employment/labor, commercial, property, education, and health, and the capacity of this ecosystem as a whole to meet the complex justice demands placed on it by society.

● Sustainability and Self Reliance: The Contractor must attain results that can be sustained beyond the life of the Activity. The Contractor must include local stakeholders, including Government of Kosovo and all relevant justice institutions and actors to seek solutions to its own development challenges. This includes planning, setting priorities, implementing, financing, and sustaining these solutions. The Contractor’s implementation of the Objectives must consistently reflect self-reliance as the end goal of assistance in Kosovo.

● Leverage Existing and New Resources: The Contractor must explore opportunities to leverage resources and capabilities with other justice sector key stakeholders, including the private sector,2 as part of its implementation approach. The Contractor must integrate the idea of co-investment and co-design and include key stakeholders when designing interventions.

2 https://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/private-sector-engagement https://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/private-sector-engagement

● Gender and Youth Integration: The Contractor must meaningfully engage women and youth throughout the lifetime of the Activity and advance gender and youth specific initiatives, approaches, and outcomes as appropriate to each Objective. Attention must be given to removing barriers women experience as justice seekers in addition to increasing their knowledge, use, and innovation of the law and justice services to remedy their specific needs as well as affect more systemic change. Empowering women as leaders in their institutions and professions should be prioritized. In addition, the Contractor must address the justice needs of youth in conflict with the law, improve youth understanding of the justice system, and facilitate their participation in community justice, transparency, and accountability initiatives. The Contractor must ensure that the representation, participation, and capacity building of women, men, and youth at all levels of interventions will be in line with USAID policies on gender equality, women’s empowerment, and positive youth development. Moreover, the Contractor should mainstream gender among the personnel chain in accordance with USAID policies.

● Thinking and Working Politically (TWP): The Contractor must conduct regular contextual analyses in order to identify and analyze power dynamics, economic and social forces, and other interests that influence how the justice system functions, institutions and actors perform, services are delivered, and reform is successfully undertaken. The Contractor will employ a TWP lens in all relevant and appropriate aspects of its implementation approach to identify activities and solutions that are politically feasible as well as technically appropriate.

C.8 MONITORING, EVALUATION, AND LEARNING

The Contractor must enable adaptive approaches to achieving Objectives, informed by ongoing contextual analysis. The Contractor must conduct focus groups every quarter to assess the effectiveness of the interventions, evaluate whether those interventions are succeeding, apply lessons learned, and adapt work appropriately. USAID/Kosovo recognizes that the success of the Activity will depend on the contributions of actors directly and indirectly engaged with the Activity, as well as institutions and processes beyond the manageable interests of the Contractor, and those changes in the local context may have implications for the achievement of results.

Nevertheless, significant shifts within the broader country context may require the adaptation of approaches and the revisiting of indicators to address these changes. The Contractor must regularly revisit its progress and whether assumptions continue to hold, keeping abreast of new developments that may create challenges or windows of opportunity. If circumstances arise, the Contractor must alter its interventions timely, as reflected in its Annual Work Plan (AWP) and Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan (MELP), with the concurrence of USAID.

The Contractor must take into account best practices when developing the MELP, which shall include an Adaptive Management approach. The MELP must emphasize the systematic process of collecting and analyzing performance data and other information to track progress toward planned results and must be used to proactively learn and adapt for future interventions. Specifically, the MELP must identify how the Contractor will select appropriate indicators of organizational performance change to track and finalize those indicators in conjunction with the benefitting organizations, encompassing both the organization’s performance in achieving targeted results and the organization’s performance in learning, adapting, and sustaining itself over time. Indicators should therefore span both short-term types (efficiency, project management outcomes, quality, effectiveness, etc.) and long-term types (learning, relevance, fundraising, sustainability, etc.) of organizational performance.

In addition to traditional performance-based monitoring and evaluation tools, the activity is expected to employ approaches suitable to non-linear change pathways. Special focus should be placed on empowering local partners - both within and outside of government - to utilize diverse MEL approaches, and to integrate learning into feedback processes that are cyclical and well facilitated.

If required by USAID, the Contractor must develop shared metrics with other rule of law and governance activities, including those supported by other USG and EU donors, and develop Activity specific indicators, benchmarks and targets, and establish baseline data against which subsequent performance can be measured.

C.9 LINKS TO MISSION AND USG STRATEGIES

This Activity aligns with the USAID/Kosovo Mission’s long-standing, strategic emphasis on strengthening the rule of law in Kosovo. In this regard, the Activity will advance USAID/Kosovo’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) 2014-2020 Democracy and Governance assistance Objective “Improved Rule of Law and Governance that Meets Citizens’ Need.” This Activity will also advance relevant aspects of USAID/Kosovo’s forthcoming CDCS. Moreover, it will strengthen Kosovo’s commitment and capacity in its Journey to Self-Reliance and in turn move the country along its path toward becoming a more just, prosperous, and cohesive society suitable for European Integration.

C.10 COLLABORATION WITH USAID AND OTHER USG DONOR ACTIVITIES

The Contractor must closely collaborate and coordinate with other USAID and USG donor-supported activities in alignment with the Activity’s Objectives. This collaboration and coordination will be designed to avoid duplication of efforts, ensure synergies, maximize impact, and leverage investments. This must be inclusive of those funded and led by the Departments of State and Justice, that are interrelated with the Objectives of this Activity. Where appropriate, particularly concerning peer-to-peer engagement and exchanges involving members of Kosovo judiciary, the program will explore ways to engage members of the U.S. judiciary’s International

Judicial Relations Committee (IJRC) based on the current USAID-IJRC Memorandum of Understanding.3

C.11 KOSOVO AND EU ALIGNMENT

The Contractor must be cognizant of, and align with, relevant European Union (EU) agreements and frameworks. This includes the EU-Kosovo Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) that requires Kosovo to consolidate the rule of law and administration of justice (recently re-confirmed by the EU Strategy for the Western Balkans)4 by strengthening the independence, impartiality, and accountability of the judiciary and judges, and adequately preparing them for cooperation in civil, commercial, and criminal matters, and to enable them to effectively prevent, investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate organized crime, corruption,5 and terrorism. In addition, the European Reform Agenda (ERA)6 Pillar I calls for Good Governance and the Rule of Law and identifies rule of law as one of the biggest challenges for Kosovo, with a number of recurring issues, including judicial independence and corruption.

The Contractor should therefore align and coordinate with EU development projects and activities in various aspects of this Activity such as EU Free Legal professions Project, EU Civil Code, etc.

The Contractor will also coordinate with GiZ Legal Reform activities and any other bilateral European and international donor activity interrelated with the Objectives of this Activity. It should also take note of the Letter of Agreement between the EU Office (EU) and USAID on the financing of rule of law programs.

3 The mission of the IJRC is to coordinate the federal judiciary’s relationship with foreign judiciaries and contribute the expertise of judges, court administrators, educators, and other officials to rule of law programs.

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2496/USAID%20IJRC%20FACT%20SHEET%20%282016%29.pdf

4 EU Strategy for the Western Balkans - https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/communication-credible-enlargement-perspective-western-balkans_en.pdf

5 Article 83 of the SAA.

6 Kosovo – EU High Level Dialogue on Key Priorities – European Reform Agenda (ERA) (2016)– https://www.mei-ks.net/repository/docs/era_final.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2496/USAID%20IJRC%20FACT%20SHEET%20%282016%29.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/communication-credible-enlargement-perspective-western-balkans_en.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/communication-credible-enlargement-perspective-western-balkans_en.pdf https://www.mei-ks.net/repository/docs/era_final.pdf https://www.mei-ks.net/repository/docs/era_final.pdf