Manual for Sustainable Return
Part II - Operational Guidelines - Institutional Rolesand Responsibilities
Police
UNMIK Police and the KPS play a role in maintaining effective security for returnees and visiting IDPs/Refugees, enforcing the restitution of residential property rights, and helping to ensure freedom of movement for minorities.
Responsibilities of the police include:
1. Participate in MWG and RWGs.
2. Participate in GIVs and GSVs, including providing security for GSV participants when necessary and briefing potential returnees when necessary.
3. Provide security for returnees.
4. Provide security and enhancing community confidence in rule of law with regard to the protection of existing minority communities and returnees.
5. Support inter-community dialogue and confidence building steps where appropriate, such as including KPS involvement in returns process.
6. Enforce other existing measures protecting minority and returnee interests, such as HPD and Property Claims Commission (HPCC) decisions by carrying out evictions of illegal occupants of residential housing.
Judiciary
UNMIK's Department of Justice is responsible for the administration of Justice throughout Kosovo. Its ability to provide impartial delivery of justice is key to building community and returnee confidence in the judicial processes.
Responsibilities of the Judiciary include:
1. Ensure access to the justice system for minorities, including returnees.
2. Continue to work toward ensuring impartiality and independence in the judiciary through international judges and prosecutors to oversee sensitive cases involving inter-ethnic communities or cases in which there is a serious risk of bias.
Housing and Property Directorate
HPD also plays a pivotal role in supporting the environment for sustainable returns. As the independent administrative/adjudicative entity for resolving property disputes arising out of the conflict period in Kosovo or the pre-conflict, discriminatory property scheme, HPD's role is central to the support of returns to urban areas. UNMIK Regulations 1999/23 and 2000/60 form the basis for HPD's intervention in Kosovo.
Responsibilities of the HPD include:
1. Verify and clarify of residential property ownership issues in individual cases.
2. Enforce property ownership rights, through issuing final decisions as to property ownership and rights of possession, including issuing eviction warrants.
3. Administer and/or determine the status of abandoned or unlawfully occupied housing, including reassigning housing units for humanitarian purposes.
4. Registration of indigent individuals who meet specific criteria to receive designated alternative humanitarian accommodation.