When the topic of the arrest of a female MP became the favorite subject of public debate, Edi Rama, Taulant Balla and Ulsi Manja submitted to the Assembly an initiative for amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code.
The draft that circulated a few months ago featured a list of senior officials for whom the initiative envisaged limiting the use of the security measure "suspension from duty".
The criteria for selecting officials, for whom the drafters of the initiative considered that a suspension as a security measure would harm the institution, were never understood. The dilemmas were not resolved, as the initiative has now been forgotten. However, an interesting fact that emerged from that list of “protected persons” was the absence of the Governor of the Bank of Albania.
The initiative was considered ridiculous by many observers not aligned with any party, precisely because SPAK, for almost all the officials on the list (with the exception of the MP), did not need to request suspension from office, as long as it could directly request another security measure, that of "prison arrest".
When everyone forgot about Rama's initiative, the Bank of Albania is reported to have requested, through the Ministry of Finance, that in the case of the Governor and Deputy Governor, the arrest measure first pass the filter of the Constitutional Court.
The ardent defender of this proposal is precisely Holta Zaçaj, the former president of the Constitutional Court, who barely left office even though her mandate had ended, embarrassing the Albanian state that went to the doors of the Venice Commission for a simple interpretation. Now in her position as the first deputy governor of the Bank of Albania, she has drafted this request, which has been forwarded to the Parliament through the Ministry of Finance.
This is because the Bank of Albania does not have the right of legislative initiative. For this reason, any changes to the laws that regulate its functioning are proposed to the Parliament by the Ministry of Finance.
The transfer of Holta Zaçaj from the Constitutional Court to the Council of the Bank of Albania was taken care of by Edi Rama himself, who for a long time seems to have a special concern for the arrangement of those who have served him with dedication. Now it seems that it is the turn of Mrs. Zaçaj to return the honor, by proposing a mechanism that, if approved, would give the Governor and Deputy Governor an almost impenetrable protective fence before SPAK could request "prison arrest". After all, a legal "airbag" never spoils the work, especially when no one knows what tomorrow may bring.
The invention of a mechanism that provides for the preliminary review of the measure of arrest by the Constitutional Court does not follow any clear logic as to why this particular institution should be entrusted with such a role.
The Constitutional Court is a state institution. It is not a court in the sense of the pyramid of the criminal justice system. It does not propose or appoint the Governor or Deputy Governor of the Bank of Albania. This, at least, the former President of the Constitutional Court should have learned during the years she led that institution.
The only explanation that remains for this invention is that someone thought of creating an additional obstacle for SPAK where the law today recognizes none.
Her name is Holta Zaçaj, whose only job as a state official in her career was at the Constitutional Court, where, as she herself has said, she "learned to navigate" despite misinterpreting her mandate, i.e. in an unconstitutional manner. Therefore, it is not surprising that she does not know that the Constitutional Court is not a court in the sense of the judicial system, but the highest constitutional institution of the state.
For this miracle to happen, some, like Holta Zaçaj, make unlimited courage available, while others do their best to ensure that the miracle takes institutional form.
Or maybe it's because Holta Zaçaj has a big enough problem to propose such a mechanism, to create a Chinese protective wall for himself and the Governor before SPAK can request a security measure.
Perhaps Holta Zaçaj has not yet learned a small detail. Edi Rama usually makes sure that the people who have served him are settled in good positions. But the history of recent years has shown something else: he is not too bothered when those same people end up having problems with justice. It is enough to remember the many names of former ministers, former mayors, former directors and former high-ranking officials who are today under investigation, defendants or convicted.
Therefore, before inventing constitutional filters for SPAK, perhaps Ms. Zaçaj should understand that the position may be a political gift, but facing justice is always personal. We hope that Governor Gent Sejko will also understand this blunder, since it is also about the institution he heads and since the media is mostly concerned only with the additional protection he benefits from.
