After eight years under the pressure of vetting judges and prosecutors, the new justice system has made strides, according to experts, but is still far from the justice that was promised in 2016.
Over the past eight years, the country's 805-strong corps of judges, prosecutors, and paralegals have gone through vetting filters – a key judicial reform process that culminated in the final decisions of the Special Appellate Panel on March 5.
Data analyzed by BIRN shows that 442 re-evaluation subjects or 55% of the total were removed from office; of which 268 were dismissed, 105 resigned and 49 others left without a final decision.
The rest survived the process, which for many observers and legal practitioners was difficult, profound, and full of light and shadow.
More than half of the country's magistrates spent long years dealing with the first instance and the College, while a more limited number also turned to the European Court of Human Rights.
According to Afrim Krasniqi, director of the Institute for Political Studies, the vetting process turned out to be "an extraordinary operation" and, overall, had a positive balance for justice.
"Perhaps in Albania's conditions it was the only way to make such a reform, so I think that in the institutional framework it was the right solution," said Krasniqi.
Erida Skëndaj, head of the Albanian Helsinki Committee, an organization monitoring the process, also appreciates the fact that the vetting overturned the concept of the immunity of magistrates.
"The positive effect is that judges and prosecutors with serious problems with the asset and image criteria left the system. The concept of their inviolability fell," said Skëndaj.
Lawyer Romina Zano, who has defended a large number of magistrates, considers the transitional reassessment process to be the most important structural intervention in the Albanian justice system since 1991, with the main achievement being the fact that "the long-awaited process took place."
But Zano is also critical of the standards followed and the burden placed on magistrates, assessing that vetting is leaving behind unresolved legacies.
“The asymmetric burden of proof has fallen on subjects who had lived and worked with integrity…,” Zano told BIRN.
“And the years of professional, social, moral or reputational uncertainty for the subjects and their families have raised serious questions about the presumption of fitness for duty throughout the procedure,” she added.
Process shortcomings
Observers and legal representatives of lawyers unite on one point when talking about the shortcomings of the process; listing at the top the selection of members of the vetting committees and their professionalization.
According to Krasniqi, the members of the Independent Qualification Commission and the Special Appeals Panel were selected under the pressure of time, without properly analyzing their professional aspects or the established criteria.
The selection in violation of the criteria for some of the members cast a cloud over the process, especially in the most exposed cases of Luan Daci and Artan Hajdari from the KPA. Daci was removed from office in December 2021 after being found guilty of falsifying the application form as a KPA member, while Hajdari was convicted of concealing income and assets in November 2024.
Lawyer Julian Mërtiri, who has also represented a large number of magistrates in the process, says that the main problem was that the commissioners who checked the judges and prosecutors did not undergo the vetting process.
"The lack of this vetting process led to the removal of some of them, even being sentenced with final criminal court decisions. These elements did not contribute to increasing public trust in the justice system, but on the contrary further undermined this trust, with the process often being described as biased," stressed Mërtiri.
Mertiri lists a number of other problems, which according to him are related to the violation of the principle of the court designated by law, the lack of equality of the parties, or the different standards followed for the same issues.
According to him, the magistrates did not have the opportunity to be heard and judged by an impartial court, since it was the same KPK body that conducted the investigation and then made the decision. Even in the process conducted at the KPA, the parties were, according to Mërtir, unequal.
“For many subjects that the KPK found deficiencies in, the Public Commissioners did not file complaints, creating the perception in certain cases that the process was not objective, but biased,” Mërtiri told BIRN.
Another problem, according to Mërtir, was the different decisions of the KPK bodies on similar or identical cases, showing no unification of position among them.
"...By treating them subjectively differently and by confirming or dismissing subjects whose cases were also treated differently by the College," notes Mërtiri, adding that the principle of proportionality was also interpreted in different ways.
Skëndaj confirms the different standards, particularly followed by the KPC at the beginning of the process, but she emphasizes that these shortcomings were corrected at the College through a unifying approach and the establishment of standards that minimized their effect in the future.
"It is worth noting that, referring to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the process has passed the test of providing and respecting the guarantees of a due process of law, with some exceptions such as in the case of Cani v. Albania or Thanza v. Albania or regarding the right to private and family life, as was the case of Sevdari v. Albania," Skëndaj emphasized.
Far from the promised justice
The mass dismissals of judges and prosecutors caused a deep vacuum in the justice system in Albania, which continues to cause consequences even after 10 years. On the other hand, cleansing the judiciary from corruption and independence from the political class continue to remain challenges.
Krasniqi from the Institute of Political Studies criticizes the architects of the justice reform for not taking into account two elements: the lack of human resources and the lack of guarantees that prevent the return of corporatism to the justice system.
"The fact that there is still a huge gap in the courts and the prosecutor's office is the cost of this mistake and lack of strategic vision, as well as the fact that the authors of the reform themselves secured personal positions and careers, avoiding vetting," he said.
However, Krasniqi believes that justice today is more functional and of higher quality than before 2016, but still far from the standards of justice that were promised. He assesses that despite the positive results, the reform continues to remain fragile and should be seen as a process that is not yet complete.
"When there are high expectations, there are also disappointments and I think that the reform as a whole has passing grades, but it is far from what the country needs and what was essentially promised," said Krasniqi, listing delayed justice for citizens as the main problem.
Skëndaj also notes an improving trend in the justice system, but insufficient to say that the wound of corruption has been healed.
Considering corruption a social norm in Albania, Skëndaj estimates that it continues to affect the judicial system, along with the backlog of cases that feed various forms of corruption or other cases of conflict of interest.
In addition to corruption, Skëndaj believes that the system is again weak against political interference.
"The influence of politics remains a more sensitive problem, both in terms of public statements but also pressures for intervention in legislation within the justice system," she further emphasized.
In addition to these two major problems, other issues are up for discussion, including the quality of today's magistrates.
According to lawyer Mërtiri, vetting brought an unnatural and urgent influx of a very high number of new magistrates into the current system, reducing quality, experience in trial and investigation to the detriment of citizens' trust in the system.
"The frequent movements of judges and the successive submission of files by them, to be taken by others and submitted again, has not contributed to an increase in trust, but quite the opposite. Making a final decision by citizens is almost impossible today, with cases from over 10 years ago still being reviewed by the courts of fact," he stressed.
Lawyer Romina Zano also believes that the long-term impact is not measured solely by the number of dismissals, but by the quality of the system that remains. She also stressed that numerical replacement does not absolutely guarantee "quality and integrity."
“The main lesson is that vetting has been a necessary 'surgery', but the health of the system requires, in my assessment, a sustainable regime, which translates into fair salaries, budgetary independence, sound legal and qualitative discipline,” Zano told BIRN, adding: “and above all, an institutional culture where integrity is the norm and not the exception.”/BIRN/
