By Muriel
The anatomy of a moral decline and institutional failure shows that if the architects of the Justice Reform were to look for an image today to illustrate their ten-year “product,” they would not have to bother with graphics; the portrait of Olger Eminaj is enough. This is not simply a pink scandal that occurred in a gray office, but the point where the “New Justice” is stripped of its expensive Brussels suit and appears to us as it is: insecure, blackmailable, and built on goat legs. What is most shocking is not the fact that an official can have ethical deviations, but the naturalness with which the bargain is made; when a member of the High Prosecutorial Council (KLP) dares to ask for sexual favors in exchange for the “resolution” of a disciplinary complaint, he proves to us that the entire system has already taken on its own face, turning the institution into an extension of primitive impulses in broad daylight and in the middle of Tirana.
The irony of “distancing” and hand-washing as a survival strategy was clearly revealed in the KLP’s reaction after the publication of the scandal, a document that is a masterpiece of institutional satire where the statement that the Council “fully distances itself” sounds as tragic as it does funny. How can you distance yourself when Eminaj did not fall from the sky into that office, but was voted, vetted and certified as “purified” by this very system? Saying “we distance ourselves” is like declaring that you do not know the man who until yesterday was your main rapporteur, a desperate attempt by modern “Pont Pilates” to wash their hands in a basin that has run out of water. This distancing is not an act of transparency, but a cowardly maneuver to save the remaining chairs, leaving moral responsibility to be dissolved in procedures that not even they themselves can control anymore.
The “goat-like” reform and the deliberate design of a legal vacuum reveal the evil genius of our rules, where Article 149 of the Constitution and Law 115/2016 have created an “armor” that in fact protects the abuser from swift punishment. The announcement by the KLP that it has addressed the High Inspector of Justice (ILD) for an “immediate” investigation is the next mockery, as we know that this process must pass through the ILD’s filters, be subject to the right of defense and finally await the Constitutional Court’s seal of dismissal. This vacuum is not an accident, but a well-thought-out project where “independence” serves as immunity from shame; a system that cannot immediately vomit up the “foreign body” that has poisoned it is a system that has accepted ethical corruption as part of its existential metabolism.
The invisible hand of high-ranking officials and the instrumentalization of blackmail explain why this procedural impasse was left open: politics needs “Olgers” who can be kept under pressure through obscure files. High-ranking officials need only individuals with weak points in key positions, people who know that their survival does not depend on integrity, but on the legal labyrinth that politics itself has deliberately left without a quick exit. When the system protects an abuser in the name of “due process,” it is in fact protecting the power of those who control that process from behind the scenes, turning justice from a public service into an auction house where the dignity of the state is sold for trivial interests.
The conclusion of this institutional drama shows that Albanian justice today has taken on the appearance of that banal conversation on WhatsApp; it is corrupt at its core and offensive to any citizen who still dares to believe in the law. Until this system has the courage to dismiss and punish without waiting for the ILD calendar or the lengthy verdicts, its face will remain that of the protagonist of this scandal. As long as the reform remains on the "goat's foot", it will continue to dance to the music of those who do not want real justice, but only a luxurious facade that hides the same old rot dressed in the new toga of the magistrate.
And so, until this procedural stalemate is resolved and the "proving of guilt" by the slow-moving instances, Olgeri will continue to be at the doors of the KLP, with a tool in hand to solve citizens' problems and unwavering support for justice reform.
