Electoral Crime in Kosovo

Abstract

Criminal offences against voting rights in Criminal Code of the Republic of Kosovo are listed in chapter XVIII. In this chapter the legislator has foreseen a total of eleven criminal offences. Through these criminal offences are protected free, legal and democratic elections. Criminal offences against voting rights directly affect in the quality of representative bodies, including the quality of governance, whether at central or local level. It has been a while that the Republic of Kosovo during electoral processes is facing a relatively high presence of these criminal offences. This fact is proven by numerous statistical data and reports of various international organizations. Modest results of this scientific paper prove that for commission of criminal offences against voting rights during the period of time 2009-2014 were filed 1619 criminal reports, were filed 583 indictments and were punished 206 persons (Note 1).
The consequences of these criminal offences are numerous and diverse, but mostly dominate those of political, economic and psychological nature etc. This situation highlights the need that regarding these criminal offences responsible state bodies (police, prosecution and courts) to undertake all the necessary legal measures to guarantee the successful fight against this type of criminality. In preparing this article I have used legal-dogmatic, statistical, comparison and analysis methods.