Author Bailey Caushaj
AH, 60 years old, is one of thousands of Albanians waiting for justice.
She once worked in a senior position in the State Police, but for the past nine years she has been fighting her dismissal in court. She has asked to remain anonymous.
"When the Socialist Party came to power, they fired me. It was the minister himself who signed the order, but the law on the state police is clear. The minister could not dismiss me", she says.
For AH, the fight for justice began nine years ago.
"After several court proceedings, in 2016, the Supreme Court of Albania decided that my dismissal was not based on the law", duek added clarifying that she has not yet received her dismissal order in order to earn the right to receive the police pension which is her legal right.
In 2018, the state requested a stay of the trial, arguing that the decision was setting a dangerous precedent for similar cases in the future..
"I'm still waiting, I have no other income", says AH, adding that she cannot claim early retirement because her case is still in court. She has no current source of income other than family support.
And due to ongoing reforms in Albania's judicial system that are taking years longer than expected, no one knows how many more years Ms. H. will have to wait for her case to be resolved.
"My retirement, my working years since I was 17 years old. It's political, it may not be against me, but it remains political until the law is implemented." she says, adding that now her hope for justice is in the Strasbourg Court, where the case is pending.
Albania is now in its sixth year of implementing what was supposed to be a five-year process of evaluating judges and prosecutors in its judicial system, in an effort to eliminate corruption in the sector. Experts say the system remains corrupt and there is still much to do.
"Along with judges and prosecutors who are honest, there are those [still working in the system] who are convinced that they will have to leave sooner or later. This results in either continued corruption or a drastic decline in the quality [of justice]”, says Jordan Daci, a well-known constitutional lawyer in Tirana.
But while Albania was once a country where judges and prosecutors could be easily corrupted without consequence, now international observers say the country is slowly moving towards a situation where the corrupt in the justice system are starting to be held accountable.
"Overall, more than 60% of vetting files processed so far have resulted in dismissals or resignations. These numbers speak for themselves and are the best proof that this process was absolutely necessary.", the EU Delegation in Albania told ACQJ.
The EU is one of the main supporters of justice reform with more than 50 million euros invested so far and 25 million euros committed in the following years.
However, this costly reform process and the loss of a significant amount of judicial manpower/staff has had unexpected consequences—a backlog of court cases that has crippled much of the Albanian judicial system.
The process of vetting judges and prosecutors is moving slower than expected, with Parliament recently renewing the mandate of vetting institutions until December 2024 due to not meeting expectations. Over the past six years, the vetting institutions have examined and decided over 535 cases out of a total of 804. The time it takes to evaluate a judge's performance, figure and wealth is long and requires a lot of financial and personnel resources.
A brief history of a major reform
The process to amend the Albanian Constitution to allow judicial reform began in 2015. At the time, the justice system was plagued by corruption, incompetence and political influence.
After several months of negotiations between the political factions in Albania and international representatives, specifically the EU and the USA, the MPs unanimously voted for the necessary changes to start the reform.
The first step was to create bodies to vet magistrates. They included the Independent Qualification Commission as a first step and the Chamber of Appeals, the highest body for the transitional evaluation of Albanian magistrates, as the final arbiter. The decision of the Appeals Chamber can only be challenged in the international court of human rights in Strasbourg.
As part of the reform process, the Serious Crimes Court and the Serious Crimes Prosecution were dissolved and replaced by the Special Court against Corruption and Organized Crime, which decides on cases brought by the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime and the subsidiary institution, the National Bureau of Investigation.
From the beginning, the justice reform has been closely monitored by international groups, mainly the European Union and the US, the two main investors in the reform, through an international monitoring mission.
A new justice system, with the same old problems
But there are still many questions, old and new, related to the justice reform, such as: has the reform changed things for the better, what still needs to be done, how long will it take and what do international observers think about the reform process?
More than half of the country's judges and prosecutors have been dismissed, leaving a wide gap of staff shortages.
Asked about the problems arising from the justice reform, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Justice responded with optimism.
"Justice reform is one of the biggest undertakings of the Albanian state. Any problems or impasses that may have been encountered in the first steps have been overcome," said the spokesperson.
However, the numbers tell a different story.
According to the "Independent Qualification Commission", since the beginning of the vetting process in 2017, 200 members of the justice system have been dismissed and 80 of them have resigned, without undergoing the evaluation process.
"Of the 280 dismissed from office, 171 were judges, 96 prosecutors, 3 legal advisors and 3 inspectors," said Joniada Koçi, the spokesperson of the KPK.
The number of vacancies created by these dismissals and resignations has had a major impact on the country's judicial system.
"No one imagined that there would be such a large number of free veins [as a result of vetting]; about 60% of judges and prosecutors have left. In the first days of the vetting process, it was estimated that only 30% [of magistrates] would leave, while 60% is a large number that needs to be replaced,” said Saimir Vishaj, who has been practicing as a lawyer for more than 24 years.
This has led to two fundamental problems. First, it created a large backlog of cases.
For example, the Supreme Court began 2021 with a total of 36,288 pending cases. This volume is largely inherited from previous years and is only 5% higher than the remaining number of cases for 2020.
At the end of 2021, the backlog of cases in the Supreme Court decreased slightly to 35,822 cases, a figure only 1% lower than at the beginning of the year.
To reduce the backlog of cases, the Ministry of Justice took a temporary measure. Pending cases involving small sums of money where the state is a party will not be heard by the Supreme Court, the state will withdraw the lawsuits.
"With this instruction, as soon as it comes into force, we expect the Supreme Court to be freed from about 3800 cases still pending to be examined, while another 1 are still in process", said Ulsi Manja, Minister of Justice, after a meeting of the Council of Ministers.
At the same time, the backlog of cases in the Courts of Appeals has reached more than 28,000 cases, 19,324 of them civil cases and 8,820 criminal cases.
Albania has six appeal courts, one each in Gjirokastër, Vlorë, Korçë, Tirana, Durrës and Shkodër. All of them have pending cases for trial, and now that the new judicial map has been approved and is expected to begin its implementation, it is unclear what will be the positive or negative impact on the latter.
Until now, the Tirana Court of Appeal has mainly contributed to the increase of unresolved cases with 13,873 such cases (61% of the total cases pending review) and Vlora with 3,436 cases (15% of the total backlog cases).
The EU delegation in Albania does not see the issues in the backlog as a serious problem, but rather considers them a by-product of the success of the justice reform.
"With the departure of 60% of estimated judges and prosecutors, this inevitably leads to problems of increasing the number of unsolved cases", said the delegation, "Already, the reform in justice continues to enjoy the broad support of over 80% [of the population], but it is essential to move forward with the finalization of the vetting process, to speed up the resolution of backlogged cases at all levels of the judiciary" , added the delegation.
The Administrative Court of Appeals alone has increased its backlog by 21% since 2020. A total of 18,415 cases are pending adjudication and almost 35% of the backlog consists of pending adjudication cases before the court from three to five years.
The second problem stemming from judicial reform is that there are not enough newly graduated judges to fill the large number of open judicial positions.
The School of Magistrates, a three-year school that graduates judges and prosecutors, currently has 59 first-year students with the potential to become judges, prosecutors, legal advisors and paralegals.
In the second year of studies, there are 66 candidates, 40 of them for judges and 26 for prosecutors. And in the third year there are only 46 candidates, 26 intending to become judges and 22 hoping to become prosecutors, the School of Magistrates said in response to a request for information from the Albanian Center for Quality Journalism.
However, for Ledio Brahon, a lawyer based in Tirana, he says that this is not enough.
"New recruitments cannot be carried out only through the normal cycle of the Magisterial School", he says. "It is necessary that recruitment in the judiciary is also done from the ranks of experienced lawyers, through legal changes".
Braho says this should be done through the School of Magistrates by implementing a process to assess the experience of current lawyers who have the desire and potential to be judges and prosecutors.
Another problem, says Saimir Visha, is that young magistrates who graduate from the Magistrate's School have no experience.
“They [dismissed judges] can be replaced by more qualified students of the Magistrate's School, but they [students] have just started their education and do not have enough experience to take on the million-euro case of notorious drug lords. It would be impossible", he said.
Visha thinks it will take two years for the justice system to move forward. Until then, he says the new judges who have graduated from the Magistrate's School will bring a breath of fresh air and restore faith in the judiciary.
"The main goal is for citizens to trust [judges] again," Vishaj concluded.
But other experts are not so positive in their assessment of how and why the reform has crippled Albania's judicial system. Jordan Daci, shows that the reform was carried out without a preliminary study.
"Initially, it was not foreseen that such a large number of vacancies would be created. The guess was 30% at most. Failure to take measures or the lack of a plan to cope with this lack of staff, caused justice to go into objective impossibility." he says.
But for Mr. Daci there is light at the end of the tunnel.
"With such a reform", he says: "I believe that the positive effects will begin to be felt in the 7th or 8th year. We are still in year 6.”
Vishaj also expressed optimism.
"There is good news from the Supreme Court, filling the gap with 11 members out of 19, because it did not work for 3 years. Even the Constitutional Court has not functioned until now, with 7 members out of 9 recently. But the biggest anomaly remains the Courts of Appeal". said Vishay.
The Court of Appeal in Tirana should have 31 judges, but in recent years the court has operated with only six. This year the court has 14 judges.
A judge on this court is required to hear an average of 3000 cases a year, and the Chamber's judges are struggling to get cases through and prevent the creation of an even higher backlog.
Overall, there are about 17,651 civil and criminal cases awaiting trial in Tirana's Courts of Appeal, but there is hope that the process will move faster once the staff vacancies are filled.
Answering ACQJ's questions, the Tirana Court of Appeal said that the workload for a judge varies significantly between courts.
"There is a workload difference of up to 918% between the judges who work in the Court of Appeal of Gjirokastër and that of Tirana", said a spokesperson of the Court of Appeal in Tirana.
The spokesman added that this imbalance leads not only to unfavorable treatment for the judges themselves, who find themselves with an extra heavy workload compared to their colleagues, but also for citizens whose cases are heard by overburdened judges. As a result, cases take longer to resolve.
Despite these obstacles, the EU delegation in Tirana believes that it is essential to move forward with the finalization of the reform process, speeding up the resolution of backlogged cases at all levels of the courts and recruiting new judges and prosecutors.
But a proposal that was considered by the government and approved recently could make those goals even harder to achieve. the proposal calls for reducing the number of courts and prosecutor's offices in Albania as a way to remedy the shortage of judges and prosecutors. But the plan has been strongly opposed by the National Bar Association, which decided to boycott all issues until the plan is corrected. The Bar Association says the plan would result in an even worse backlog and backlog of cases.
In the end, the government did not take into account any comments or criticism. She approved her plan.
SPAK, a beacon of hope for justice
The only part of the justice reform that seems to be working is the Special Structure against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK), a special prosecutor's office created as part of the reform. It also includes the National Bureau of Investigation, or as some call it, the Albanian FBI.
SPAK gave the first results. A former Minister of the Interior was convicted of abuse of office and at least two other former deputy ministers have been imprisoned or arrested and are under investigation for various crimes.
Directors of important state institutions are also under investigation for corruption and abuse of office, while some of the most well-known names of organized crime in Albania have been arrested or are under investigation by the special prosecutor's office. At the same time, the former director of the General Prosecutor's Office, Adriatik Lalla is already behind bars for concealment of assets and false declarations of assets.
Now the public is waiting to see what SPAK will do for judges and prosecutors who have failed in the vetting process. So far, only two of the more than 160 judges removed from office have faced criminal charges.
Asked about this by ACQJ, the Chief Prosecutor of SPAK, Arben Kraja said that the vetting agencies for judges and prosecutors have not yet filed criminal charges against anyone they dismissed.
"SPAK has registered several criminal proceedings against prosecutors and judges for corruption or false declaration of assets. They were registered mainly or on the basis of citizen's complaints". Kraja said, indicating that other investigations are underway.
In May of this year, former head of the Constitutional Court Bashkim Dedja was sued by SPAK and is awaiting trial for concealment of assets, and his properties have been seized by the court.
In July, the Special Criminal Court for High Level Corruption ordered SPAK to continue the investigation to seven former members of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. Among them are former judges of the Constitutional Court Besnik Imeraj and Gani Dizdari, former head of the Supreme Court Xhezair Zaganjori and former judges of the Supreme Court Edmond Islamaj, Tom Ndreca, Guxim Zenelaj and Aleksandër Muskaj. Their alleged violations of the law include concealment of assets and false declaration.
Before starting the reform, the Venice Commission raised two questions: did Albania have the capacity to replace all the judges who would be "left over" in the vetting process and would the number of new institutions created be able to eradicate systemic corruption .
Six years after the start of the reform, the first question has an answer. Albania does not yet have the resources to replace all the magistrates who failed to "pass the grade", as the current vacancies are much larger than expected.
As for the second question, it is too early to give a definitive answer.
This February. The Assembly of Albania gave the vetting institution another three years to complete the work. But neither the Parliament nor the vetting institutions addressed the reasons why the institutions failed to complete their work within the initial period of five years.
"The extension of the deadline is necessary for the completion of the process", said the Parliament.
The only guarantee given by these institutions is the same as five years ago: the process will be completed successfully. Now the deadline for the end of the vetting process is December 2024, and the bill for taxpayers continues to rise far beyond initial projections. Until 2022, the reform has cost the Albanian taxpayer a total of 1,066,112,050 ALL (more than nine million dollars), only in terms of the costs of the vetting institutions, without taking into account the costs for the citizen awaiting justice.
As an Albanian proverb says, "The operation was successful, but the patient is still in the hospital."
