Minister of Justice, Toni Gogu, spoke today during the inauguration of the new premises of the Special Court about the need for a balance between security and human dignity in courtrooms, also touching on the debate about the so-called "cage".
"The European standard requires that balance... procedural security and human dignity, presumption of innocence and protection in the courtroom," he stated.
But in Albania, the debate about the "cage" has a bitter irony: no one saw it for years.
As long as ordinary citizens, people without power, without cameras, and without political support, appeared in those metal structures, the system had no crisis of conscience. No one spoke about “human dignity,” the “presumption of innocence,” or European standards of treatment in courtrooms.
The "cage" was there. Ordinary. Normal. Almost invisible.
The debate only began when ministers, mayors, MPs, former high-ranking officials and people in power were seen behind the bars of the courtroom. Only then, suddenly, did public opinion, politics and institutions discover that the structure seemed humiliating, that it created a perception of guilt and that it violated dignity.
Essentially, the problem wasn't the “cage.” The problem was who entered it.
And this is perhaps the clearest picture of Albanian justice: standards only begin to be discussed when they affect the elite. When they affect the ordinary citizen, they are considered routine.
