Publication of court judgments in Kosovo has doubled, marking a real breakthrough for the judiciary as the courts become more transparent about their decisions. Increased transparency has been proven to increase public trust in the justice system. A USAID-sponsored monitoring report shows courts are publishing on average 1,000 judgments per month on the Kosovo Judicial Council (KJC) website, noting a 120 percent increase over 2018 where courts published on average 450 judgments per month. As a result of the public pressure from monitoring, which began in May 2019, the number of published judgments made another significant jump per month to 1,807 in November— about eight times the average over the last three years.

In addition, from May to November 2019, the total number of judges publishing their judgments increased by 106 percent. The highest number of judges publishing was in November when the number doubled to 188 judges out of 340 publishing their judgments.

Despite the Law on Courts mandating the publication of judgments, Kosovo courts still lag far behind in publishing 100 percent of the judgments as mandated by law. As a result of USAID’s support, there has been a significant increase in the publication of basic court judgments from 8,722 in 2018 to 17,811 in November 2019—providing citizens, civil society organizations (CSOs), and the media with improved access to this important information.