Journalist Klodiana Lala, invited to the show "The Unexposed" on MCN TV, spoke about Sokol Sadushi's initiative for changes in the practice of the security measure "prison arrest".
Lala said that the numbers of detainees are worrying in Albania, but no one has remembered this problem so far and now the goal is to release senior officials.
"The length of pre-trial detention has been among the worrying problems of the prosecution and the courts. We have received criticism from international organizations for the measure of "prison arrest". With the coming to power of the Socialists, there were several initiatives on electricity, illegal construction, and so on, which criminalized the entire society and everyone went to prison.
We are 14 years later and they have remembered that pre-trial detention is a big problem. This problem has existed. Mr. Sadushi's initiative, a request has been received in the Supreme Court from a citizen convicted of cannabis. A measure of arrest with imprisonment was assigned. Upon the person's appeal, the Appeals Office reduced the measure to house arrest and against this the prosecutor has appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that the criminal offense that the person is suspected of has a high margin of punishment and so on. He has requested that the citizen in question should be returned to pre-trial detention. The person in question claims that the measure against him is arbitrary and has raised claims.
Essentially, what was discussed today in the United Colleges? The main issue to be resolved is whether the court must justify that the measure of arrest is appropriate for a person, or justify why other alternative measures should not be imposed.
Only after having justified this should he justify why the drastic measure of imprisonment is appropriate.
Second, the dangerousness of the act and the person. According to the Joint Panels of the Supreme Court, should the dangerousness of the act or the person prevail?
The lawyer said, "We take it for granted that an intellectual, or an educated person, makes a mistake at a certain moment, should we leave him in prison, or should the court justify the social status, the criminal offense, the contribution to society? Meanwhile, the general prosecutor's office, in simple words, said, it is necessary to unify judicial practice, but in the Albanian reality, alternative security measures are not implemented. So what is the guarantee that the measures will be implemented? Essentially, it seems like an attempt to benefit important high-ranking officials from this unification of practice, since the focus was placed on the personality of the suspect and not on the offense," said Lala.
