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The exercise of public authority granted by law based on democratic governance assumes the existence of certain predispositions which effectively ensure the protection of the public interest. The professionalism of public servants is one of the main requirements to exercise the public authority as best as possible and in the function of protecting the public interest while also guaranteeing the effective protection of the rights and legal interests of people. This means that in order to achieve a good standard of professionalism, it is necessary to ensure that the staff has a proven professionalism. This is achieved through the implementation of rules that ensure meritocracy in order to be trusted with the exercise of public authority through the definition of positions and strict responsibilities in all links of public institutions. Recently, there is a growing trend, not only in Kosovo but also in the region, that the regular positions that remain vacant are filled with acting position and which for a long time are not filled through the procedures of advancement or external recruitment. This approach, certainly simple and suitable for daily politics, but also for the officials close to him, has managed to ignore and seriously violate the principles and rules of meritocracy and professionalism. Almost all managerial positions, especially high-level management positions, have been held for years with acting positions to make it easier to achieve political goals, which in most cases are illegal and do not protect the public interest. Based on the simple mechanism of appointment and dismissal, the acting position can be appointed and dismissed within the day and without any procedure, and this fact made the use of this mechanism very attractive by politics, deliberately avoiding the rules and principles that ensure meritocracy. Knowing the nature and dimensions but also the effects of this phenomenon, the institute of acting as a regulation will be clarified below, but also the problems it has caused in practice, giving practical recommendations on how to solve this problem.
