Kosovo MPs on Monday voted to amend the law on the Kosovo Specialist Chambers so the Hague-based court, part of Kosovo’s justice system, may not impose a sentence of imprisonment exceeding 15 years. The amendment has not been adopted yet, as it must undergo a parliamentary committee review and return for a second reading.

Outside parliament, protesters who had staged an all-night vigil in front of the legislature chanted: “Vote [for] the law.”

The vote comes amid anger in Kosovo after the court sentenced former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and three other former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, Jakup Krasniqi, Kadri Veseli and Rexhep Selimi, to 25, 25 18 and 13 years in prison respectively for war crimes on September 16.

The four were found guilty of arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture and murder from April 1998 to June 20, 1999, in Kosovo and several locations in Albania.

Critics have, among others, claimed that the court did not apply the “lex mitior” principle, which allows defendants to be sentenced under the most favourable law of the time that the crime was committed. According to the applicable law of former Yugoslavia, the maximum prison sentence is 15 years.

The amendments include for the sentences to be served in Kosovo. Based on the current law, “the Specialist Chambers may order the transfer of a convicted person to a third country for service of his or her sentence of imprisonment”.

The amendments also grant Kosovo’s President power to grant pardons, the work of the court to be subjected to monitoring by international organisations, and for a constitutional review of the law to be conducted by the Constitutional Court of Kosovo.

It is not certain whether a second reading will take place on Monday.

Bedri Hamza, chair of the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, which Thaci founded, and which proposed the amendments, said before the vote that the law does not belong to his party, even if it “is a PDK initiative”.

The verdict, which is to be appealed, caused outrage in Kosovo and people have been protesting daily ever since.

It also led to the initiative to change the law on the court. The court is a hybrid tribunal – although it is part of Kosovo’s judiciary, it is staffed with internationals and located in The Hague.

It was established in 2015 under pressure from Kosovo’s Western allies because of concern of potential witness intimidation if the processes were to be held domestically in Kosovo.

The court has a mandate to try crimes committed from January 1, 1998, to December 31, 2000, based on a Council of Europe report by Swiss Senator Dick Marty, which made allegations of war crimes and organ trafficking by KLA fighters.

An EU Special Investigative Task Force, led by former US prosecutor Clint Williamson, concluded that there was enough evidence to indict suspects for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but not enough to bring charges for organ trafficking.

On Monday, before the law was put to a vote, Prime Minister Albin Kurti reminded MPs that the country faces another crisis, over the election of a President.

“A law regarding the Hague court is necessary, but so is a President of Kosovo. Proceeding with one without the other could be highly detrimental. We cannot claim to be defending Kosovo’s interests in The Hague while allowing an institutional vacuum to develop within Kosovo,” he said.

Tuesday is the constitutional deadline for Kosovo to elect a President and finalise the formation of institutions deriving from the June 7 elections. If a President is not elected, the country faces its fourth parliamentary elections in less than two years.

Even if the law amendments pass the second reading, they will be enforced only after the appeals panel at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers issues a verdict for Thaci and the three others.