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New Drive to Tackle Corruption in Albania

09 10 2007  Efforts to clean up the judiciary have fallen foul of political in-fighting, but citizens hope latest initiative will bring a measure of justice.

By Ergys Gjencaj in Tirana

Suzana belongs to a section of Albanian society often referred to as “owners without property”. As she talks about her long legal battles her expression becomes sombre and she gazes into the distance.

“I am the granddaughter of Muharrem Bajram Demneri, a family name as old as the city of Tirana. When we learned that we had inherited property [in Tirana], we also discovered that everyone wanted a piece of it, as it is centrally located,” she explains


She has been fighting for her inheritance for the last 10 years. The land that was returned to her family, more than half a century after having been expropriated by the communist regime in 1944, has since been occupied illegally by somebody else.

For Suzana, as for thousands of others, trying to enforce her legal right through recourse to the courts has been a fraught, and hitherto fruitless, exercise.

Judicial reform has been high on the political agenda for several years and is a major prerequisite for Albania’s integration in the EU. However, the constant battle between ruling and opposition parties for control of independent institutions has had a negative impact on judicial reform – each side suspects the other’s motives.

Albania entered the 1990s still suffering from the effects of 50 years under one of the most repressive regimes in the old eastern bloc. After the fall of the iron curtain the country found itself with few functioning independent institutions.

Under the rule of former dictator Enver Hoxha, the judicial system operated as a tool of state repression. Though the collapse of the communist regime in 1991 set this branch of government on the road to reform, political interference and corruption remain endemic.

Newly-elected President Bamir Topi has launched a fresh effort to gather support for judicial reform, but this will be an uphill battle in light of Albania’s divisive political atmosphere.

Suzana’s story is not unusual – thousands of Albanians face a prolonged struggle in the courts to gain possession of property that legally belongs to them. They may continue to struggle in vain unless the judicial system is overhauled.

Just in the Tirana district court there were 671 property cases pending in 2005; more than a quarter of these remain unresolved – and in 153 instances where the district court issued a decision, its ruling was taken through appeal to a higher court.

President Topi convened a roundtable of political parties on September 17 with a view to forging a cross-party consensus on judicial reform, an issue that has seriously undermined the country’s aspirations to build a free market and integrate in the EU and NATO.

“We have problems with professionalism in the justice system,” Topi told the roundtable participants. “There are problems with the [political] alignment of various judges, and there are problems of political interference. This causes public disquiet; there is a lack of transparency, especially with regard to property rights, and this is an area that touches directly on citizens’ interests.”

The President’s analysis has been echoed in the various reports issued by international institutions monitoring the Albanian justice system.

The latest Transparency International report, TI, made public at the end of September, shows that the country ranks last in the region when it comes to the level of perceived corruption.

Although Albania registered an improvement of 0.3 points on the TI index, it still ranks 105th out of 180 countries listed. The report puts Albania on the same levels as Bolivia, Burkina Faso and Egypt, countries notorious for their high levels of corruption.

The TI report recommends sweeping changes in the justice system and backs Topi’s effort to introduce a zero tolerance policy on corruption.

However, TI warns that reforms will only have an impact if they involve real change in the behaviour of judicial officials. The report calls for the dismissal of corrupt judges and prosecutors and for the proper application of penalties against corrupt officials.

Though virtually everyone in Albania’s political class recognizes that the justice system needs to be reformed, there is almost no area of agreement on how this reform should be brought about.

The centre-right government of Prime Minister Sali Berisha has tied its reform efforts to a struggle to remove Prosecutor-General Theodhori Sollaku, whom Berisha accuses of having ties with organised crime and of failing to pursue corruption cases. Sollaku denies the charges.

The opposition Socialists see the government’s attempt to fire the Prosecutor-General as an attempt by Berisha to gain control of all branches of government, as part of a bid to strangle democracy in Albania.

The centre right coalition established a parliamentary investigative commission last year to remove Sollaku, but former President Alfred Moisiu refused to join forces with the government, insisting that the commission had not gathered evidence to justify the Prosecutor-General’s dismissal.

After Topi, the former deputy head of the governing Democratic Party, DP, was elected President in July, Berisha and other DP leaders stepped up calls for the removal of Sollaku.

However, the opposition Socialists have stood firm, arguing that if the President removes the Prosecutor-General, he will, in effect, be taking sides in a political battle. This, the Socialists argue, would destroy whatever chance there is of building consensus on reforms that are vital for the country’s future.

Kreshnik Spahiu, TI’s representative of Albania, points out that the justice system clearly needs a complete overhaul. The President should provide the necessary leadership to carry the reform process forward, he says. This exercise should be part of a broader effort to make public institutions in Albania more transparent.

“There is an immediate need to push for the effort led by the President. There should be a change in the political approach to the penal system and the quality of judges has to be improved”, Spahiu said, adding that some corrupt officials in the judiciary should be fired immediately.

By contrast, constitutional expert Rustem Gjata believes that the key to successful reform is to improve the quality of new legislation aimed at upgrading the system.

“The very pace of change has created problems”, he told Balkan Insight.

Stressing the inherent difficulties of reforming the judiciary, Gjata argues that properly drafted legislation represents an indispensable base, and he points out that all three branches of government must engage in the process.

Among key problems is inadequate oversight of the judicial process, Gjata says. “The fact that there is such a poor level of control aggravates the problem. It is better to have no control at all than to have purely nominal control.”

Suzana, trying to recover her family’s property in Tirana, is worried that the new push for reform might be no more than a political gimmick. But she is moderately optimistic that this time round there may be some relief for herself and for thousands like her caught in the web of the Albanian justice system.

“I really hope something changes, and that it’s not just a political game. Ordinary people need justice”, she said.

Ergys Gjencaj is a journalist of the daily newspaper Korrieri. Balkan insight is the online publication of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. This article was made possible trough the support of the National Endowment for Democracy.