By Desada Metaj
It is no longer a secret that the desire to dismantle the strongest structure of justice reform, the Special Prosecution Office, has been taking shape for more than a year and has begun to be implemented by the majority, despite the limitations that it has had, mainly from the international factor.
Fatmir Xhafaj was the first to take the lead in launching a reform on reform with the commission he led, which continues its activity today in full competition with the Laws Commission. The Manja-Xhafaj rivalry, although from the outside it may seem like a duality between socialists, in essence has a greater contradiction than that: the object of the work.
In other words, and to avoid confusion with the terminology, the issue is to whom the independent justice institutions (read SPAK) will report. Although quietly and unperturbed by the opposition, the majority has in its hands the expected changes to the Assembly's regulations, which will likely include the reporting of independent institutions.
Fatmir Xhafaj and the commission he heads, with a long and meaningless name, have not hidden their ambitions to have the reports made in his commission. Not in vain, for several weeks the members of this commission inspected the walls and halls of the court buildings, including the Special Court, in a sham process where the only one who did not access the building was SPAK.
And this time, the former prosecutor of the '80s has thought of sanctioning SPAK's reporting to him with changes to the regulations, which will likely be part of a long process of debate not only with the opposition, but also with those who conceived the reform and are officially its guardians: the internationals.
In parallel with these efforts by Fatmir Xhafaj, another experienced jurist has changed course to be closer to the interests of the majority. The President of the Supreme Court, Sokol Sadushi, de facto launched consultations today to partially change the unified practice of 2011 regarding personal security measures.
Despite all the elaborations in the legal discourse, one thing is clear: this is an attempt to get all the VIP prisoners in Albania out of their cells. Although over the past year Sokol Sadushi has repeatedly criticized the prime minister for his stance on justice, it seems that they are now on the path of "reconciliation" and amnesty for Edi Rama's former associates who are now behind bars.
No matter how hard Mr. Sadushi tries to hide the purpose behind the troubles of some fakir who is lying in prison for trivial reasons, through the United Colleges of the Supreme Court, he cannot cover the sun with a sieve. And in this case, we are talking about the sun of Erion Veliaj, Ilir Beqe and someone else.
If it were for the sake of the people without support, perhaps they would have remembered a little earlier and not in the last months of his term as president of the Supreme Court. Even worse when you see that in today's session, after all parties spoke, none of the "fathers" of justice remembered to get an opinion from SPAK. As if it doesn't exist or they didn't gather for the convicts of the Special Prosecution.
Moreover, these initiatives — one in the Assembly and one in the Supreme Court — initiated at the same time are not a coincidence. They come from characters who have shared common interests throughout their careers and whose stars, for better or worse, always align with Edi Rama.
It is the latter who, it seems, is once again testing the old loyalists Xhafaj and Sadushi to change the rules, get the arrested out of their cells, and bring SPAK under control. Will they succeed? That remains to be seen.
Every attempt to bring SPAK under control has failed for reasons that are not related to any political factor, but entirely to the international one. Apparently, the last duo coming from the dictatorship system thinks that there is no fortress that the communists cannot take... until the moment when the fortress is defended by NATO and you realize that the Warsaw Pact is a castle of cards, more or less like the one run by Bajram Begaj.
