Justice Minister Speaks of Nameless ‘Threateners’ of Judiciary Reform in Albania

TIRANA – Without mentioning names, the Justice Minister, Etilda Gjonaj has said the justice reform is threatened by those who constantly try to undermine it.

Speaking in Thursday’s plenary session of Parliament Etilda Gjonaj said there had been positive results regarding justice reform as all institutions exercise their functions but the process is threatened by ‘those who constantly try to undermine it’.

Special attention was paid by her to the question of vacancies at the High and Constitutional courts which, as a matter of fact, are out of work for a long time. Sharing no responsibility for the situation, the minister considered the state of affairs something which is ‘inherited’. Nevertheless the failure to appoint judges for these two courts to function was not seen as a defeat of the judiciary reform.

“This is not a vetting problem but an inherited problem and a lack of integrity of those dismissed judges. Apart from attacks, it is not the time to slow down the (justice) process,” she said.

In a reference to the latest opinion of Venice Commission Gjonaj said it did not affect the principles established by the justice reform, rather “it gave the Parliament the right to make appointments to the Constitutional Court”.

In another development in the field of reforms, the co-heads of the Political Commission on the Electoral Reform declared success of the deliberations last Wednesday evening.

“We concluded work reaching an agreement on all past pending issues today. I can say fearlessly that we have met all the requests of the opposition,” said Damian Gjiknuri, Socialist Party co-chair of the Commission, after the meeting. He clarified that the selection of the members of the Central Elections Commission (CEC) will be made by a special commission where the extra- parliamentary opposition will have its representatives.

The representative of the Democratic Party (DP), Oerd Bylykbashi said the new Electoral Code, which will be adopted in Parliament after Wednesday’s accord, will offer additional guarantees for free elections. He noted that opposition’s demand on CEC was accepted and the government will not have any possibilities to affect the administration of the elections.

In the meantime, Rudina Hajdari, a Democrat MP sitting in Parliament, said emigrants’ vote will be guaranteed in the next parliamentary elections expected to be held in 2021. /argumentum.al