By Joan Bishop

From September 20 to October 5, I traveled to Kosovo and worked as a volunteer for the National Center for State Courts (NCSC). NCSC is a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development (part of the State Department) and runs a project in Kosovo called the Kosovo Justice Support Project. The goal is to strenthen the judicial system through improvements in court administration, judicial education and other areas. My task was to evaluate the operations of the Commercial Court and make recommendations for improvements related to topics such as caseflow management, records, management, staffing and facilities. I submitted a final report with all of my recommendations to the court before I left Kosovo and also did a presentation to the chief justice, court administrator and staff on some of my suggestions.

The Kosovo Commercial Court is similar to what we would call a "business court." The success of this court is of critical importance in this newly declared democracy that now has many more businesses than in past years. Everything was previously owned by the communist government. It will be important for the court to show the public and the government that it can resolve business despites fairly and efficiently.

There is one Commercial Court in Kosovo located in Phristina (also sometimes spelled Pristina), the capital. This court hears all the business cases from throughout the country. There are four judges sitting full time, a court administrator and various staff who make up the court. It is at this point that any similarities to our system end. The building is old, with cracks in the walls, a concrete floor, little or no heat and has not been cleaned in months. The offices are small and there is no smoking ban anywhere, so each room you walk into is enveloped in a cloud of gray smoke. Everyone in Kosovo smokes. The windows have not been washed in ages and have layers of smoke and dirt. The furniture is ancient. Old pieces of equipment are piled in corners and left to age. The carpets are torn and the fabric on the seats, if there is any, is stained and ripped. Many people have worked there for several years yet there is not a single personal item, such as a photograph, in anyone's office.

There are no case files that we would recognize. When a case is filed, it is given a number and given to a judge. From that moment on, the judge maintains control of what happens in the case. Hearings, documents, and any other activity on the case is all managed by the judge and his/her secretary. Few know how many cases there are filed in a year and fewer still know how many are disposed of. When the case is over, the judge gives it to the "archivist" and it is shelved away. Nothing is automated so recordings are done manually. Multiple people enter documents and correspondence in large books and items are often entered several different times in different books. The process is typical of a large communist bureaucracy that continues to repeat procedures because they have always done it that way.

	Joan with her interpreter, Floria, the Chief Justice and Court Administrator

Of all the differences one can find between this court and ours, this is the most dramatic: litigants and attorneys frequently come to the court to find out what is happening with their case. They walk in the building and go directly to the judge's office. Unless the judge is in a hearing, the party can sit down and discuss their case with a judge, ask advice on what to do next or request information on how to prepare a document. This is a widely accepted practice. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "access to justice." Individuals that work in the courts, from judges on down, want to do a good job but they are very much stuck in an archaic mindset that makes change difficult.

Another interesting difference - there are literally no driving laws anywhere. People drive on the sidewalk, park on the sidewalk, will pull out into an opposite lane if they think they have been sitting too long, drive cars that have major parts missing, i.e. doors, etc. and sound their horns constantly for no apparent reason. Because the electricity is sporadic, when you come to an intersection with lights that don't work, it is pretty much a free for all. Fortunately, there are taxis and buses, which are just as bad but at least I wasn't driving them.