Sa e thellë është kjo shpellë? ("How deep is this cave?")
Katie and I visited Peja, which is a gorgeous mountainous area west of Pristina. Unfortunately, the city was heavily bombed during the conflict with Serbia and the reconstruction is obvious. Peja is famous for the beautiful views of the Accursed Mountains and the range of natural waterfalls in the area. Now with a name like the Accursed Mountains (which is what it is called in several Balkan languages so it must be really cursed), we had to go explore it. I found a great tour guide, who picked us up at the bus station and we drove to Sleeping Beauty Cave. The cave is owned and maintained by the Peja Hiking Association which has a long history and it turned out, our guide was the president of the association.
We rode out to the side of the Rugova Mountains to climb up to beautiful waterfalls and the Sleeping Beauty cave entrance. These mountains are perfect for hiking and mountaineering, with trails that lead to gorgeous vistas, alpine meadows, and secluded glacial lakes. In winter, the mountains become a haven for snow sports, with skiing and snowboarding. Our guide gave us helmets with headlamps and gloves and gave us some history of the hiking association. Peja’s hiking association owns and operates this cave and they employ high school students to act as guides and do the office work in order to continue teaching the next generation about conservation.
We explored the public areas of the cave as our guide gave us a quick science lesson on how various cave features form. He also showed us where the current archaeology projects are happening with various European institutions sending students and experts to explore the skeletons found recently. Finally, we free climbed 200m down into deeper parts of the cave, ending at an underground lake with the clearest coldest water imaginable. We turned off our headlamps and the darkness and silence was all-consuming. It was an amazing experience and I hope to do some more cave trekking back in Virginia!
At the Academy, everyone is getting ready for next year’s schedule of trainings to commence in September. Last week, I introduced the Kosovo Judicial Council and their annual recommendations report. This week, I get a front-row view of how the Academy takes those recommendations and creates the new training programs. The training is split between first-year mandatory training and the voluntary continuous programs. The first-year program is very similar to my first year as a law student in the United States- the courses are pre-selected focusing on major doctrinal issues, legal writing techniques, lawyering skills in negotiations and mediation, and classes concerning professional responsibilities and ethics. The continuous training program has doctrinal classes as well but they focus on updates to the law.
The more interesting part to me in the continuous training are the special niche topic seminars. During my internship, there were seminars in cybersecurity, cybercrime, cryptocurrency, domestic violence, anti-bias towards minority parties, and sensitivity towards vulnerable victims. The Academy does an amazing job at keeping each year’s programming relevant and practical for judges. In addition, the Academy has numerous partnerships with EUKOJUST, EULEX, EU ministries, and the United States’ Department of Justice to create specialized seminars for judges, prosecutors, and police officers in implementing European and international standards and norms in Kosovo. The Academy even conducted specialized trainings for translators and interpreters with the Kosovar court system to effectively use legal procedures and terminology, including utilizing practice scripts and simulated trials.
For next year, I’m already seeing seminars on domestic violence training and organized crime corruption on the schedule for September. Combatting public perception of corruption in the judicial as well as fighting organized crime with European partners is going to be a very big project for the upcoming year.