Functional Review of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

Transcription

1 Functional Review and Institutional Design of Ministries Functional Review of the Ministry of Internal Affairs FRIDOM Functional Review and Institutional Design of Ministries is a DFID-funded project, implemented by Corporation, Consulting and Public Management Group, Governance institute Slovakia and Altair Asesores. HELM

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations... 3 Executive Summary... 4 Introduction... 6 SECTION I:... 7 Findings of the Functional Review Mission and structure of the, the scope of competences and the human resources Overview of the main functions of the... 9 SECTION II: Recommendations for the Ministry Goal 1: to enhance the s overall strategic capacity Goal 2: to ensure the s regulatory capacity in the area of public safety and security Goal 3: To strengthen the management of the citizenship, asylum and migration issues Goal 4: To improve the service delivery to the citizens and residents of the Republic of Kosovo.. 22 Goal 5: To improve the strategic and operational emergency management SECTION III: Summary of Organizational Changes and Sequencing Summary of organizational changes and sequencing Impact of the recommendations on the numbers of staff in the and its agencies Gender impact of recommendations ANNEXES Annex 1 Main legislation and sub-legal acts of the Republic of Kosovo used for this review Annex 2 List of sources used for the references in this review

3 Abbreviations EPAP European Partnership Action Plan EPP European Partnership Priorities EU European Union FRIDOM Functional Review and Institutional Design of Ministries CRA Civil Register Agency DBAM of Borders, Migration and Asylum DCAM for Citizenship, Asylum and Migration DEM of the Management of Emergencies Ministry of Internal Affairs MPS Ministry of Public Services UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNMIK United Nations Mission in Kosovo EULEX the European Union Rule of Law Mission to Kosovo

4 Executive Summary The functional review of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (the ) provides 8 specific recommendations for improvement of the functioning. The review starts with two recommendations that should improve the functioning of the ministry as such, then continues with suggestions for individual areas public security, migration, asylum and citizenship, production of documents - and concludes with emergency management. The first proposal is to create a strong central for Policy Planning, Monitoring and Control in the ministry, primarily to enable the Minister to use his/her competences to oversee the Kosovo Police Service more effectively and to compensate for a rather diverse nature of the business. The department would allow the Minister to drive the Ministry strategically and coordinate various areas better as well as guarantee uniform standards in statistics, data and analysis. The second recommendation is to increase the capacity to plan and manage human resources in the by strengthening the Personnel Division and by preparing a strategic planning document on the human resource development of the. The plan should be approved by the Minister and serve as the tool for future planning of the budgetary resources related to the staff of the, as well as for the training planning. The report goes on to suggest several important changes in each of the ministry s major areas of policy responsibility. The third recommendation of the review is to clarify the mandate and improve the capacity of the of Public Security by focusing it on the regulatory activities in the areas of small arms, civil explosives and private security companies. This involves completion of the legal framework, extensive training for the staff as well as divestiture of two non-core activities statistics and data collection and civil aviation security. The fourth recommendation is to establish the for Citizenship, Asylum and Migration (DCAM) through the merger of the current of Border, Asylum and Migration with the Citizenship Office, but also through transferring the staff of the Division of Borders to the for Policy Planning, Monitoring and Control. This would have the advantage of creation a single department with clear focus on regulatory affairs in areas, which are closely related. The fifth recommendation also concerns the issues of migration. It is to clarify competences between the and the Kosovo Police Service by giving the new DCAM responsibility for the issue of visas and residence permits and leaving to the Immigration Division of the Border Police Unit of the Kosovo Police Service responsibility for implementation of the control measures concerning the immigrants status and dealing with illegal migration (including detention of the illegal migrants). The sixth recommendation is a procedural one and aims at improving efficiency of the processes for granting refugees status. The review recommends that, in order to improve efficiency of the process, Kosovo abolishes the current model of two levels of appeal - the National Commission for Refugees and the Supreme Court. This would leave DBAM (in the future DCAM) as the decision-making body, with the court as a second and final one. Alternatively, if this is not possible, the should ensure an early appointment of the members to the National Commission for Refugees to ensure that, upon the transfer of the competences from the UNHCR, the appeals system for the asylum seekers is ready to operate. The final two suggestions are about spinning off the functions, which can be better performed by individual agencies. The seventh recommendation is to establish a Civil Register Agency to issue IDs, passports, citizenship, civil status documents and driving licenses in one stop shop. The CRA should be created on the basis of the current of the Production of Documents and of Registration and Civil Status. On the other hand, the vehicle registration function should be transferred to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The new agency should also maintain and update the single population register. 4

5 Implementation Policy & supervision Political The last, eighth proposal is to establish a single agency under the for all fire-fighting and rescue services, while retaining the policy planning functions in the reorganised for Management of Emergencies. This would involve spinning off the service delivery and inspection functions and most of the from the for Management of Emergencies into the new specialised Agency of Fire-fighting, Rescue and Emergency Response, where it would join the firefighting units currently managed by municipalities. The review suggests the implement these recommendations gradually over the next two years, with the exception of capacity-building measures, which are expected to take longer (up to five years). The new ministry structure should be composed of four line departments responsible for individual policy areas and two supporting departments as well as some supporting units. The Ministry would supervise 6 agencies, of which three would be newly created. The recommendations would decrease staff numbers in the ministry itself down to 111 to 119 workers. The expected decrease would come primarily from the establishment of new agencies and the transfer of employees to these agencies. At the same time, the number of staff in the agencies would increase to workers (of which 723 are the current fire-fighters employed by the municipalities). However, according to the review estimates, all the proposed changes can be accommodated within the current staffing limits. The following chart shows the suggested organogram of the after all changes: MINISTER Deputy Minister & Cabinet Public Relations Office Human Rights Unit Permanent Secretary & Cabinet Office for European Integration and international co-operation Legal for Policies and Strategies on Emergency for Public Security for Policy Planning, Monitoring & Control for Citizenship, Asylum and Migration Central Administration Agency for Firefighting, Rescue and Emergency Response Kosovo Police Centre for Public Security Development & Education Kosovo Police Inspectorate Agency for Citizenship & Civil Status Registration Reception / Detention Center(s)

6 Introduction This report contains findings and recommendations of the functional review of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (the ) conducted between August 2008 and January In February 2007, the Government made the functional review and re-organisation of its administrative structure a key objective of its newly published Public Administration Reform (PAR) Strategy and Action Plan. The FRIDOM Project has been launched in April 2008 and will involve all ministries (except for the newly created foreign affairs and defense ministries) as well as horizontal business functions of the government such as human resource management, procurement, e-government and others. Most Central and Eastern European countries have undertaken similar functional reviews processes in the lead-up to European accession. As these experiences show, there is a high risk that the recommendations from functional reviews done by external consultants are not implemented. Therefore, Kosovo s approach to functional reviews is that recommendations from reviews will be translated into Medium Term Institutional Development Plans (MTIDPs) of ministries by the relevant institutions themselves and also into further updating of the Kosovo s Public Administration Reform Strategy. As a part of the review, the FRIDOM Team prepares the Analytical Report outlining options for restructuring and capacity development of each portfolio. The Analytical Report for the is based on extensive interviews with the staff and representatives of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), the European Union Rule of Law Mission to Kosovo (EULEX), and other stakeholders. They are also based on analysis of relevant normative acts of the Republic of Kosovo as well as various policy and project documents. Last but not least, the recommendations also take into account the relevant findings recommendations contained in the European Commission s 2008 Progress Report on Kosovo. All possible care was taken to ensure that recommendations provided support implementation of the European Partnership for Kosovo (EPAP) document. The report is structured into three major parts. Section I of the report analyses the mission, competences, functions, organisation and numbers of staff of the comparing it to selected small EU Member States. Section II contains specific recommendations as to the scope, functional and organizational setup of the based on findings from Section I. Section III presents a summary of organizational changes, including the new organizational chart of the, and their sequencing, the impact of the recommendations on in the numbers of staff in the and its agencies, as well as on the gender balance.. The list of normative acts regulating the s competencies and analysed during the course of the review is contained in the Annex 1. Other sources used, such as documents of European Commission, expert reports and the professional literature are referred to in the Annex 2. 6

7 SECTION I: Findings of the Functional Review 1.1. Mission and structure of the, the scope of competences and the human resources The Ministry of Internal Affairs (referred to in this Report as the ) is a large multi-sector ministry. Its importance is underlined by the fact that its role and tasks are defined not simply at the level of laws, but even in a number of Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. The is a new ministry established in December The process of the establishment was followed by the transfer of competences not only from UNMIK, but also from the Ministry of Public Services (e.g. in the area of vehicle registration and driving licenses). This process is not yet completed, since some of the functions are still to be transferred from the UNMIK and UNHCR (e.g. in the case of the refugee determination procedure). In addition three laws related to the core competences are still in the legislative process (e.g. the Draft Law on Small Arms, Draft Law on Private Security Companies). Chart 1 shows the current organizational structure of the ministry. We can see that the ministry consists of 8 departments (which in most cases are divided in divisions, sectors or units), four offices and two units. In addition the Citizenship Office and the of Public Security mentioned in the organogram are not yet operational. One more structural body - the joint reception/detention centre for the illegal migrants and asylum seekers should be built by December Chart 1. Current organizational structure of the and number of employees by units Kosovo Police (8716) Citizenship Office (NK) MINISTER Deputy Minister & Cabinet (15) Public Relations Office (3) Office for European Integration and International Co-operation (2) Procurement Office (5) Permanent Secretary Legal (10) & Cabinet (3) Internal Audit Office (1) Human Rights Unit (4) of Registration & Civil Status (244) for Production of Documents (155) for Vehicle Registration & Driving Licences (221) for Emergency Management (80) Of Central Administration (29) for Borders, Asylum & Migration (14) of Public Security (17) Centre for Public Security Development & Education (164) Kosovo Police Inspectorate (48) The s strategic plan for defines as its mission to build, preserve and increase the safety of all the citizens in Kosovo. Taking into account the still expanding mandate of the Ministry, the rather short period of its operations in practice, the demanding and challenging nature of its tasks, many of which have been of great urgency due to the proclamation of independence of Kosovo, it should be stressed that the currently copes quite well. However, the will need to improve its capacity in order to fulfil this mission efficiently in the long term perspective. The is large compared to similar ministries in small EU countries except for Slovakia (see Table 1: Comparative data on the s sizes in EU-6 vs. Kosovo below). This is partially due to the fact that those functions, which are most frequently delegated to agencies (e.g. vehicle registration, issue of the passports and driving) are performed by the staff of the s central body. However it shall be underlined that there is no standard model of a Ministry of Internal Affairs in the European Union. The size and competences of the s of the EU Member States often reflect traditions of the public service of these States, their size and constitutional setups as well as institutional and legal framework. On one hand, an EU Member State may not even have a at all, the functions being fulfilled by the other ministries (e.g. Ireland). On the other hand, in other EU Member State the may have a very wide competence including the issues of public administration (Poland, Netherlands, Slovakia), administrative reform (Hungary, Slovenia and Romania) and local governments and public health (Denmark until 2007). 7

8 Population (million inhabitants) Number of the staff Table 1: Comparative data on the s sizes in EU-6 vs. Kosovo Estonia Slovenia Latvia Lithuania Finland Slovakia Kosovo In Kosovo, after the transfer of the functions from UNMIK and other actors (e.g. UNHCR) is completed, the will cover all major competencies, which are found in Ministries of Internal Affairs in the small EU Member States. These are: Preventing and combating crime Management of emergencies Population registration Citizenship issues Issue of Identity cards, passports, citizenship documents, civil status documents, driving licenses and vehicle registration documents, Management of legal migration as well as dealing with illegal immigration, Border control and border protection, Asylum, subsidiary protection, temporary protection and refugee issues, Regulation of small arms, civil explosives, private security companies and civil aviation security The capacity of the to perform its assigned functions depends on quantity and qualification of its staff. The real constraint for the in terms of human resources appears to be the quality, not the quantity and this is the basis for recommendations made by the review. Although the exists for a relatively short period of time, the staff of the is predominantly composed from workers hired within the different periods of time and transferred together with the functions from other institutions (e.g. Ministry of Public Service or UNMIK). In such cases the usual planning of the human resources was not possible. Also, during the interviews the line managers of the in most cases indicated that if they had additional funding, designed expenditure would be aimed at the increase of the salaries or the additional training for the staff. The actual number of staff (805 workers) is smaller than the planned one (844 workers), although the recruitment was pending for some of the positions in the time of the conducting of the review.. It should be noted that the capacity to properly manage the human resources is an important precondition for the successful functioning of the institution of such size and broad and divergent functions as the. The results of the review show, that the Personnel Division of the of Central Administration deals primarily with the formal aspects of recruitment and technical activities related to the existing staff, not with the human resource management. Low number of the staff clearly makes the strategic human resource planning and planning and coordination of the necessary training of the s staff difficult. 1 While comparing the numbers for Kosovo s the, the number of staff working for vehicle registration and issuance of the driving license (221 person) was not taken into account due to the fact that in EU-6 only 1 country has this function and the related personnel within the central body of the (Slovakia).

9 1.2. Overview of the main functions of the Public safety and crime, border control and protection In this area, the functional review analyzed the relationship between the and three agencies responsible for public safety and border control - the Kosovo Police Service, the Kosovo Police Inspectorate and the Kosovo Centre for Public Security, Education and Development. A separate functional review of the Kosovo Police Service will be conducted by the project as well. Therefore, the analysis only deals with the inter-institutional relationships. The Kosovo Police Service has the following mandate: to protect the life, safety and property, the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all individuals to prevent dangers to the society and maintain the public order and safety; to detect, prevent and investigate criminal acts to conduct traffic surveillance and traffic safety control to conduct border surveillance and border control, assistance during natural disasters and other emergencies 2 The status of the Kosovo Police Service is set out in Article 128 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. The overall system of the development of the Kosovo Police Service can be characterized as unusual with no analogies in the small EU Member States. The Kosovo Police Service was created in 1999, 6 years before the creation of the and it has been sharing some of its competences with the UNMIK and, subsequently, with the EULEX (e.g. in the area of co-operation with Interpol). Article 5 of the Law on Police provides for a relationship between the Kosovo Police Service and the, where the Police function under the authority of the Minister of Internal Affairs and under the control and supervision of the General Director of the Police, but the Minister s authority does not include operational management of the Police. The law provides the Minister with a number of specific powers to exercise the authority. As in case of the itself, there is no uniform model for the police organisation in the EU Member States. However as shown in the Table 2: Comparative data on relationships of police and the and border control functions in EU-6 below there are some common features. Usually, the police service is either placed under the or is in some way under its supervision. In four small Member States out of 6, the Border Guard service is established separately from police and placed under the. 2 The description is elaborated on the basis of the provisions of the Law on Police (law nr. 03/L-035).

10 Table 2: Comparative data on relations between police, and border control functions in EU-6 Body of the responsible for the supervision of police Status of police Separate Border Guard service if exists Estonia Slovenia Latvia Lithuania Finland Slovakia Law Enforcement and Criminal Policy under Deputy Secretary General of the for Internal Security Body under supervision of the Border Guard service under the the s Police and Security Directorate Body under the No, border control performed by the police Deputy State Secretary of the Body under the supervisio n of the Border Guard service under the Police department under the Ministry of the Interior, which at the same time is part of the Lithuanian police Body under the Border Guard service under the Police of the, which at the same time is part of the Finnish police Body under the supervision of the Border Guard service under the Police is integral part of the Police is integral part of the No, border control performed by the police The formal regulatory framework for the relationship between the and the Kosovo Police Service appears to be appropriate and sufficient though there are minor remaining issues (e.g. in terms of communication with the public or international relations). However, the real challenge is for the to utilize its competences to steer the KPS in a way that does not threaten the operational independence of the KPS, but also allows the minister to exercise his/her constitutional and political responsibility. The currently does not have sufficient capacity to fully exercise the powers that it already has vis-à-vis the KPS, so the capacity constraint seems to be binding. Although the issue of the functions of Kosovo Police Service will be the subject of a separate review, it should be stressed that in the conditions of Kosovo (comparatively small territory, existing legislative framework, existence of the border control/protection service under KPSe) it is not necessary and advisable to create one more agency of the specifically for the border control/protection purposes. The second agency under the with police-related mandate is the Kosovo Police Inspectorate, which deals with overall inspection of the Kosovo Police Service and also reviews complaints about misconduct of the KPS police officers regardless of their ranks. There is no uniform model for the similar functions in EU-6. The model implemented in Kosovo can be considered acceptable, since the officials of the Police Inspectorate are independent and accountable to the, not to the Kosovo Police Service. However, there are important practical problems in the interaction of the, the Kosovo Police Service and the Police Inspectorate. The Senior Police Appointments and Discipline Committee, which deals with the decision-making on serious offences conducted by the police officers, was established in However, by December 2008, it has not started to examine the cases submitted by the Police Inspectorate (in total 130 cases). The last agency in this area is the Kosovo Centre for Public Security, Education and Development (KCPSED), which has a mandate to provide technical, administrative and educational support to all public security agencies, such as: the Kosovo Police Service, UNMIK Customs Service, for Management of Emergencies and Kosovo Correctional Service. The Centre provides comprehensive approach by training the officials of different branches of law enforcement/emergency management bodies through a large number of courses. The chosen approach is also cost-effective. The statistics of the Centre indicates the impressive number of the

11 staff of the above-mentioned Kosovo institutions trained in the different courses in trainees. Overall, there appears to be no reason for a major institutional realignment Management of emergencies The term emergency is used in number of meanings. A minor event that causes a limited amount of property damage and a few casualties (accidents like car crashes, house fires and related human injuries) is an emergency. In this case, fire-fighters, policemen and emergency medics respond. The term emergency is also used with the reference to a major event (e.g. flood or earthquake), which requires prompt and effective action as well as the coordinated response action among the different authorities. Thus the emergency management is also concept widely used in a variety of meanings, but which can be commonly identified as applying science, technology, planning and management to deal with the extreme events that can injure or kill large numbers of people, do extensive damage to property and disrupt community life 3. EC Progress Report 2008 does not contain references to the emergency management in Kosovo. There is also no EU legislation, which would set the standard model for the emergency management, except some aspects (e.g. use of common emergency number 112, cooperation of EU Member States in the area of civil protection etc.). Thus no standard uniform approach in EU Member States is practiced in relation to the institutional and legal setup for the emergency management. In order to identify the role of the in the emergency management, it was necessary to look at the overall system of the emergency management in Kosovo. A number of laws - the Law on Protection against Fire, the Law on Protection against the Natural and Other Disasters, the Law on the Establishment of the Kosovo Security Council - as well as a special document of the Government titled Basic document on rules of the Government of Kosovo for emergency/crisis situation are related to the emergency management. The document defines the Government s response to emergency, the emergency levels that require the obligatory involvement of the Government, the objectives and principles of the Government s response, planning for the response (indicating the of the Management of Emergencies (DEM) of the as the responsible authority) and other issues. The legal regulation of the emergency and crisis management provides that, during a state of emergency in the whole territory of Kosovo, the Kosovo Security Council, chaired by the Prime Minister should exercise executive authority and responsibilities on behalf of the Government, limited in time and to those actions deemed necessary to deal with the emergency situation. The Kosovo Security Council should be assisted by the Secretariat. The Secretariat should be responsible for coordinating the development of Kosovo s security strategy and policies and providing administrative and functional support for the Kosovo Security Council. The Acting Head of the Secretariat was appointed, but the Secretariat itself was not operational at the time of conducting of this review. The Kosovo Security Council should be supported by a Situation Centre, which should provide timely information and coordinate Kosovo-wide operational response activities. It should serve as an operational centre for information gathering, basic analysis, and support of crisis management. It should be stressed that while the Situation Centre is to play very important role in the emergency management, it is not even mentioned in the Law on Protection against the Natural and Other Disasters. The of Emergency Management of the is expected to perform the following functions: to ensure that Kosovo is prepared to prevent, respond to and recover from disasters to develop and implement the Kosovo emergency and civil preparedness strategy, in close cooperation with other ministries and municipalities to manage emergency situations at the Government level, defining standards for carrying out duties related to civil preparedness and emergency response in Kosovo 3 M.Lindell, C.Prate, R.Perry, Introduction to the Emergency Management, Wiley, 2007, P.6.

12 to coordinate municipal emergency preparedness bodies, based on the character and scale of disaster While some of these functions imply close cooperation between the and fire-fighters and rescuers, the fire-fighting staff was transferred from the to the municipalities in Based on the interviews and other sources of information it can be concluded that currently the Fire and Rescue Services are unable to satisfyingly fulfil their responsibility of saving life and property of the people of Kosovo 4 due to the numerous reasons (underpayment, lack of equipment, standards of training, command procedures and other negative factors). The DEM indicated during the interviews that they are discussing with the Ministry of Local Government Administration the possibility to take back the fire-fighting and rescue services under the framework of the. The above-mentioned provisions of the legal acts and practical examples give a clear indication of the necessity to clarify and strengthen the s role as one of the major bodies in the emergency management system in Kosovo Citizenship migration and asylum issues The issues of citizenship, migration and asylum are currently distributed between a large number of actors within the or under the : of Borders, Migration and Asylum (DBAM) of the The Citizenship Office of the (not yet operational and staffed) Reception/detention centre for the illegal migrants and asylum seekers (not yet built, staffed and operational) Kosovo Police Service, in particular, the Border Police Unit. UNHCR also participates actively in exercise of public authority, actually conducting some of the functions related to the refugee status determination. DBAM has the following tasks according to legislation: to provide for efficient border management (as clarified by the officials of this Division, they are responsible for the policy planning in this area, whereas implementation is conducted by the Border Police Unit of the Kosovo Police Service) to provide for repatriation/readmission of Kosovo s former residents from abroad to conduct admission of refugees and asylum seekers and assist them in solving possible difficulties during the accommodation process and their integration into Kosovo society, to implement repatriation/readmission policy in accordance with the conventions, laws and standards determined by the European Union. The Citizenship Office is expected to deal with the cases of release from the citizenship, revocation of the decision on release from citizenship, deprivation of citizenship, granting of the citizenship in the exceptional cases as prescribed by the Law on Citizenship of Kosovo. Reception/detention centre for the illegal migrants and asylum seekers should provide the accommodation and the relevant services to illegal migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and returnees/repatriates as a temporary solution for their housing during the processing of their case and the decision-making on their future status in Kosovo. The physical facility of the centre should be ready by December The Kosovo Police Service currently carries out the activities related to the control of the legal/illegal migration. EC Progress Report 2008 contains several critical findings on the issue: The structural set-up of the Ministry of Interior allows for overlap and does not lay down a clear distribution of tasks Overall, there is little progress to report in the field of border control and asylum. 4 Status Analysis of the Kosovo Fire and Rescue Services, CTIF Final Report, OSCE, 2007, p.3.

13 Law on Citizenship of Kosovo includes detailed provisions for the naturalisation of foreigners in Kosovo. At the same time, the conditions set to receive Kosovo citizenship are difficult to meet for members of the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian (RAE) communities. Kosovo has no visa regime. The Kosovo Police Service has only a limited degree of control over the movement of persons into and out of Kosovo In general DBAM has insufficient capacity: The range and combination of its responsibilities are a cause for concern and it has limited capacity to handle asylum cases There is no reception centre for asylum seekers or illegal migrants. At the same time, it is pointed out that Kosovo receives very few applications for asylum. No Law on Migration (final title is Law on Foreigners) has been adopted 5. The experience of small EU Member States shows a number of options for management of migration, asylum and citizenship issues (see Table 3: Comparative data on management of migration, asylum and citizenship issues in EU-6). In the majority of EU-6, the asylum and migration issues are managed by the specialized agency subordinated to/supervised by the (exceptions are Slovenia and Slovakia). The options for the management of the citizenship issues are more divergent, but in four EU Member States they are also managed by the or the specialized agency subordinated to/supervised by the. In two cases out of 4, the citizenship issues are dealt with by the immigration authorities, because most of the citizenship cases workload in EU Member States is usually related to the acquiring of the citizenship by the immigrants. Table 3: Comparative data on management of migration, asylum and citizenship in EU-6 Estonia Slovenia Latvia Lithuania Finland Slovakia Migration & Asylum issues Citizenship issues Citizenship & Migration Affairs Board under the Citizenship & Migration Affairs Board under the Migration & Integration Division, Internal Administrativ e Affairs Directorate, the Division for Civil Status, Public Documents & Residence Registration, Internal Administrativ e Affairs Directorate, the Board of the Citizenship & Migration Affairs under the Naturalisati on Board under the Ministry of Justice Migration under the The of National Minorities & Lithuanians Living Abroad under the. Government Immigratio n Service under the Immigratio n Service under the Immigration Service under the Division of Citizenship, of General Internal Administratio n, the 5 The Law on Foreigners (Law No. 03/L-126) was adopted during the elaboration of this report on 16 December 2008 (promulgated on )

14 The current set-up in Kosovo involves several problems that need to be dealt with. The first one is the status of the reception/detention centre for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. Article 38 of the Law on Asylum provides that Appropriate Asylum facilities should be established and managed by the Ministry. The said facilities may be used by the Ministry to accommodate Asylum seekers who have made an application for Asylum and are awaiting the determination of their application. Paragraph 2, Article 60 of the Law on Foreigners provides that a foreigner can be detained in the Reception Centre for Foreigners of the Competent Authority [the ]. The EU Directive 2003/9/EC of 27 January 2003 laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers is very flexible in the terms of the organising of the reception centres for the asylum seekers. Not only state, but also private and NGO-run centres exist in some of EU Member States. In relation to the detention centres for illegal migrants, no EU detailed standards on detention facilities currently exist, because Directive on common standards and procedures in Member States for returning illegally staying third-country nationals, which also covers the issues of detention of illegal migrants, was adopted on 11 December, 2008 and did not yet enter into force in the European Union. The is currently in the process of the construction of one joint reception/detention centre for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. It needs to be clarified, which institution will be responsible for the supervision of this centre and for the security issues of this centre. The second issue is the efficiency of the processes for granting the refugee status. At the moment, handling of the asylum seekers cases is the responsibility of the Asylum Division of the DBAM. However UNHCR have not yet transferred the competence of the examination of the asylum applications to the. Law on Asylum indicates that the examination of the asylum seeker s application and subsequent appeal may take place in four instances (2 of these instances are the courts, the final decision to be taken by the Supreme Court). This is likely to be a lengthy procedure, which may take 1-2 years at average. On one hand, an asylum seeker in such situation is uncertain about the outcome of his/her case for relatively lengthy period of time. On the other hand, the has to care for an asylum seeker, with the resulting financial burden for the Kosovo Consolidated Budget. Therefore the refugee determination procedure does not seem to be very efficient both from the s and an asylum seeker s point of view. Directive 2005/85/EC of 1 December 2005 on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status does not require the examination of the application in four instances. The examination is obligatory at two levels, with the second one being court or tribunal. EU Member State is free to choose whether it should have more instances for that purpose. The third issue in this area is the division of powers between the and the Kosovo Police Service in the area of migration. Analysis of the situation 6 in the area of migration indicates that the functions of the Immigration Division of the Border Police Unit of Kosovo Police Service and DBAM need to be clarified. The Immigration Division carries out the activities related to the legal/illegal migration, including the control of the employment of foreigners. DBAM currently carries out activities primarily related to the repatriation/readmission (the title of Migration Division of the DBAM is rather misleading in this regard). The Law on Foreigners specify that the is responsible for the migration control and prevention and combating of the illegal migration. No division of the responsibilities between different departments of the and the Kosovo Police Service is indicated in this Law. Thus it is possible to clarify the competences of the and the Kosovo Police Service by means of the sub-legal acts of the. Lastly, the experience of the small EU Member States shows that in most of the cases the management of citizenship and migration/asylum issues is usually performed by a single department within the or an agency under the. This is due to the fact that in most cases the citizenship is acquired by a foreigner through naturalisation or it is granted in the exceptional cases to be defined by the state. This presumes strong link between the authorities responsible for the citizenship and those, responsible for the migration and asylum (as the refugees usually are allowed 6 Peer-based Assessment Mission to Kosovo, Justice, Freedom and Security, as well as in the interviews with the several the officials

15 to naturalise after the certain period of domicile in the country). That is why the creation of the separate body of the for the citizenship issues only could not be as effective as having one body, which would deal with the citizenship, migration and asylum issues Population registration and issue of identity cards, passports, citizenship documents, civil status documents, driving licenses and vehicle registration documents The current structure of the includes three departments ( of the Production of Documents, of Registration and Civil Status and of Vehicle Registration and Driving Licenses) dealing with the registration of persons and vehicles, civil status documentation, production of passports, IDs and other documents. However the current institutional setup for the performance of the above-mentioned functions has a number of practical concerns. First of all, the of Registration and Civil Status has no direct access to the main Civil Register Database of persons who requested and were issued passports, identification documents and driving licenses. Instead, the of the Production of Documents has the access. Secondly, the staff of the of the Production of Documents and the of Registration and Civil Status, make up half of the number of the overall the staff. Together with the staff of the of Vehicle Registration and Driving Licenses the overall number of staff in these departments reaches ¾ of the staff, swamping the ministry with service provision tasks unsuitable for a central policy-making body. Thirdly, 30 civil status centres belonging to the municipalities heavily rely on the support in the practical aspects of work (instructions for work, paper forms, and stamps). The fees for the issuance of the passports are collected by the municipal workers, but they are paid to the budget. There are two additional concerns. Kosovo needs a single population register, which would contain information on all the citizens and residents of Kosovo and all documents (identification and travel documents, driving licenses issued to them). It currently does not have one. A related issue is protection of personal data, since the work of these departments results in the processing of the large number of electronic and non-electronic sources of the personal data 7. Lastly, there is also the specific issue of vehicle registration. It is questionable whether the vehicle registration should be performed by the in the future. Currently it is performed by the s due to the fact that historically it was performed by UNMIK together with the production of the driving licenses and later this competence was transferred to the. The experience of small EU Member States shows no uniform approach to the issues of the driving licenses and vehicle registration (see Table 4: Comparative data on Vehicle Registration and Issuance of Driving Licenses in EU-6). In three EU Member States, these issues are dealt with by the agencies/state companies under the Ministries of Transport/Communications and in one Member State (Lithuania) by the state company under the. Slovenia and Slovakia have a different approach a citizen may apply for a vehicle registration or a driving license and receive it either in the police station (Slovakia) or in the so-called administrative unit (Slovenia). 7 At the moment there is no Personal Data Protection Law in the Republic of Kosovo. The personal data protection issues needs to be solved individually by each public institution. the elaborated the Draft Law, which is currently in the process of adoption.

16 Table 4: Comparative data on Vehicle Registration and Issuance of Driving Licenses in EU-6 Ministry / Agency Estonia Slovenia Latvia Lithuania Finland Slovakia Estonian Vehicle Registration Centre under the Ministry of Economic Affaires & Communication The s Inspectorate & Administrative Units, Ministry of Public Administration State Stock Company Road Traffic Safety Directorate under Ministry of Transport State Company Regitra under the Finish Vehicle Administration under the Ministry of Transport & Communication Police During the functional review, the top management indicated the desire to reform the abovementioned services by establishment of the Civil Register Agency. The review supports this ambition and recommendations on the establishment of the CRA are provided in Section II of this Review. At the same time, the needs to decide whether function of the vehicle registration should not be transferred to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, leaving the production of the driving licenses and their issuance to the Regulation of small arms, civil explosives, private security companies and civil aviation security The of Public Security was established during the period of the review and was not operational at the time of its completion. Its establishment is the result of several re-organisations within the. It was given rather broad scope of functions, three of which are related to regulatory activities - licensing and control of the circulation of the small arms and explosives, activities of the private security companies. There are however two unrelated areas of responsibility - civil aviation security and the analysis of the crime and security related statistics. EC Progress Report 2008 is critical in relation to the small arms and explosives, indicating a lack of the proper legal regulation of the issue: There is no strategy for the collection of weapons. Legislation on small arms is incomplete and its enforcement is ineffective The number and availability of small arms, light weapons and explosives, as well as the continuing presence of unexploded ammunition circulating in Kosovo, constitute a very serious problem. The absence of a proper legislative framework leads to unregulated arms circulation, which is affecting crime rates and public security in Kosovo. The review identified three main organizational issues with regard to the department. The first one is that the Law on Small Arms and the Law on Private Security Companies are currently in the adoption procedure and thus there is still no legal basis for much of the department s work. This should be remedied in the following months, so it can be seen as a temporary problem. The second problem is the placement of the Division for Research and Statistics into the. Since the department as a whole primarily deals with the regulatory functions (licensing and control), inclusion of the division seems to be more due to the history of the reorganised for Security Policies than to current needs. Thirdly, the role of the Civil Aviation Division of the for Public Security is unclear. The Law on Civil Aviation Law provides only that the office space should be provided by the Civil Aviation Authority within its headquarters for two civil aviation security workers of the. Thus the is responsible for the implementation of the international conventions and those aspects of the EU s acquis communitaire as may apply to civil aviation security. The airport and aircraft security activities in the EU Member States are performed in a number of the organizational setups: by the airport security, police and even private security companies (sometimes all three of them are involved and co-operate with each other), but the institution responsible for the overall compliance of the stakeholders with the security measures is the Civil Aviation Authority of EU Member State 8. Thus taking into account the above mentioned, both legislative and institutional solution of the civil aviation security raises concerns to its efficiency and operability in practice. 8 Aviation Security Comparison of Europe and the United States, September 2004, pp.236,

17 SECTION II: Recommendations for the Ministry This section deals with the detailed strategic recommendations based on the analysis and findings of the Section I. The recommendations are grouped by the strategic goals they are meant to achieve. Each recommendations includes the necessary institutional, capacity building and legislative measures as well as the suggested initial numbers of staff for the structures of the to be established and, where relevant, describes the necessary changes to the EPAP. Goal 1: to enhance the s overall strategic capacity Recommendation 1: Create a for Policy Planning, Monitoring and Control The needs to have a strong central level policy planning, monitoring and coordination capacity. The newly created for Policy Planning, Monitoring and Control will ensure the existence of such capacity and its utilization. Its existence reflects three objectives: to have a unit in the ministry responsible for policies in the areas of border protection and border control, public order and public safety (including cross cutting issues such as drugs, trafficking etc). It would also provide the ministry with a strengthened analytical function (statistics, data collection and analysis) to enable the Minister to use his/her competences to oversee the Kosovo Police Service more effectively. This would involve responsibility for strategic policy-making with regard to the police (elaboration of the strategies, action plans and other documents with the relevance to the police) to compensate for a rather diverse nature of the business and allow the Minister to drive the Ministry strategically and coordinate various areas, and to guarantee uniform standards in statistics, data and analysis The should have the following tasks: to regularly analyse policy and planning documents of the, reports on their implementation as well as the relevant statistics and other data to submit to the Permanent Secretary and the Minister policy proposals in the areas of the border protection and border control, public order and public safety to develop draft policy and planning documents of the in these areas and to prepare the reports on their implementation, to evaluate draft policy and planning documents as well as the related reports and other documents, elaborated by the other the s departments and agencies, and comment on their compliance with the strategic goals and existing policy planning documents of the, to coordinate the exchange of proposals within the and achievement of internal consensus with regard to draft policy and planning documents to develop draft administrative instructions, decisions or other the s sub-legal acts or documents in the field of its competences a) Institutional/capacity building measures The mandate of the for Policy Planning, Monitoring and Control, which is described above, should be exercised by three divisions: Division for Policy Planning (1 Head of Division plus three workers) with some of the positions transferred from the Division for Borders of the of Borders, Migration and Asylum after its reorganisation Division for Monitoring and Control (1 Head of Division plus three workers) Division for Research, Analysis and Statistics (1 Head of Division plus 4-5 workers) with the staff and competences to be transferred from the of Public Security. 17