December 11, 2003
Kosovo's parliament voted Thursday to make all laws passed during the rule of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic inapplicable and invalid in the province, saying they were discriminatory and lacked legitimacy here.
But the top U.N. official, Harri Holkeri, who holds the ultimate authority in the disputed province, quickly declared parliament's move invalid. The decision is "beyond the competence of the assembly...and is without validity and effect," Holkeri said in a written statement.
Parliament voted 73-17 to invalidate all laws enacted between March 22, 1989 - the day the province's assembly was disbanded by Serbian authorities led by Milosevic - and June 1999, when the U.N. removed Belgrade's authority over Kosovo. Laws passed during that time were discriminatory since they were passed by parliaments with no legitimacy in Kosovo, and because they were used to discriminate against ethnic Albanians, said Arsim Bajrami, an ethnic Albanian lawmaker.
Serbs in Kosovo and in Belgrade immediately condemned parliament's vote Thursday, in what was mainly a protest against the local ethnic Albanian leadership. "Belgrade cannot sit idly and watch all this," Nebojsa Covic, Serbia's deputy prime minister, said.
The U.N. resolution creating Kosovo's special status left the final status of the province open. The ethnic Albanian majority demands independence, while the Serb minority and Serbian authorities want it to remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, the country that replaced Yugoslavia earlier this year. The legislation in force in Kosovo consists of a motley of laws passed during Yugoslav times, supplemented by U.N. regulations.
The U.N. began running the province after NATO bombed Milosevic's troops' to end their crackdown on Kosovo's separatist ethnic Albanians. The province has elected a parliament, formed a government and has a president, but the U.N. mission holds ultimate authority. The mission has announced a list of benchmarks on democracy, human rights, minority protection, rule of law and other issues that must be met before the area's final status is discussed.
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