Arben Rakipi, the director of the School of Magistrates, at the public hearing on the new Criminal Code, focused on the most controversial article of the draft – defamation. In front of Justice Minister Ulsi Manja and other attendees, Rakipi defended the idea that journalists should not be exempted from criminal liability.
"If we exempt journalists from libel, I find it offensive and in a way we license them to libel. Or worse yet, it prejudices by implying that they libel," he declared, giving libel an almost privileged legal status that deserves protection from any "abuse" of the press.
Rakipi emphasized that the journalist is connected to the truth, so there is no reason to be specifically excluded from the article. He also explained that the technical group has provided a minimum protection – “for normal logical error” – so that those who make mistakes in good faith are not penalized.
Rakipi then turned the issue of defamation into a larger debate, acknowledging that it has now moved from the technical to the political sphere. "Albania has a promise to decriminalize defamation, but our working group has not had political contacts to absorb this orientation and has remained at the technical level. Then this discussion has taken a backseat," he said.
However, for him, the danger is not where most of civil society sees it. “I don’t think Albania will be harmed by defamation in the Criminal Code,” said Rakipi, placing the word and the truth in an ambiguous relationship: “Respect for the word is relative, it depends on how much respect the word has for the truth.”
Finally, he recalled that decriminalizing defamation is not a binding international standard: "Kosovo has decriminalized it, but this is not an imposed norm. The point is not to overlook the legal elements."
So, Albania does not have to follow the examples of democratic countries – because according to Rakipi, defamation is not a problem for the country, but a healthy criminal article that is good for justice.
