TIRANA, June 20 – Justice delayed is justice denied, says a legal maxim. That seems to be the case with Albania’s newly established administrative courts which are failing to render timely justice.
Insufficient material and human resources and poor infrastructure remain problematic in Albania’s administrative courts, operational for about three and half years now, a monitoring report by the OSCE Presence in Albania has found.
“Although trials were processed in a timely manner at first instance, this was not the case at the appellate level. Scheduling of hearings and case adjudication in the sole Administrative Court of Appeal tends to be prolonged and violates the 30 day deadline imposed by the law on administrative courts for adjudication of appealed cases,” says the OSCE.
The report is based on an analysis of the data collected during the OSCE Presence in Albania’s monitoring of 159 administrative cases between May 2015 and May 2016.
The OSCE Presence monitored administrative proceedings in all six administrative courts of first instance from May 2015 until end of November 2015, and at the Administrative Court of Appeal from May 2015 to May 2016. The cases most frequently brought before the administrative courts are labor disputes, followed by property restitution or compensation disputes, taxes, customs duties and related fines, licensing for commercial purposes and pension benefits. In the overwhelming majority of 98 percent of cases observed, lawsuits were brought by citizens or private businesses.
Albania’s new administrative justice system, with six specialized first instance courts and one appellate court began operating in November 2013 after a saga in Parliament to get the necessary qualified vote because of political disputes between the two main political forces.
The new court system was described as an important step in reforming the judicial system, ensuring legal review of administrative decisions by independent courts, increasing transparency and fighting corruption in the civil service. It was meant to ease the case burden of other courts and allow specialized judges to deal with administrative cases, provided that the necessary resources are allocated.
The Administrative Courts of Vlora, Shkodra, Durres, Korà§a and Gjirokastra have four judges each, while the Tirana Administrative Court has 16 judges. The Appeals Administrative Court in Tirana which covers all of Albania has only seven judges. An Administrative College operates at the Supreme Court as the highest Administrative Court instance to complete the full legal infrastructure ensuring the independent legal review of administrative decisions.
In their one-year monitoring, OSCE observers noted good practice before first instance courts which generally processed cases without delay. “The shortcomings which caused delays in adjudicating cases before the Administrative Court of Appeal are a significant concern. A large backlog of cases, which was said to result from the lack of judges and other court staff, is not a justified reason for non-compliance with international fair trial standards in relation to the adjudication of administrative cases within reasonable time,” said the OSCE.
Although most litigants were represented, the Presence noted the very small proportion of litigants who instructed a legal aid lawyer, recommending measures to increase public awareness of this possibility.
In its detailed report, the Presence makes 18 recommendations for the improvement of the administrative justice system, including tackling issues in the location of courts, hearing schedules, public information counters, physical access and amenities for people with disabilities, recording of hearings and duration of trials.
“Coordination with the School of Magistrates should be improved to ensure that hearings are not scheduled for days when the judges are attending training,” says one recommendation.
“If the Administrative Court of Appeal is to continue as the sole administrative court at appellate level for the entire country, the Presence recommends that court personnel, including judges, legal assistants and support staff, should be increased. Alternatively, and preferable from the Presence’s perspective, the Albanian legislative and executive could consider increasing the number of administrative courts of appeal in the country,” says another recommendation.
“Where there is a case backlog, measures, such as the appointment of additional judges or administrative staff, must be taken promptly to address the problem,” it adds.
An earlier 2016 report by the Albanian Investment Council found that two years after their establishment, administrative courts were failing to examine business appeals in time and about three-quarters of their decisions are in favor of the public administration.
“Administrative courts do not possess capacities to objectively review cases within legal deadlines, taking into account the high number of cases filed in such courts and the limited number of judges,” says the Investment Council report about disputes the business community has with the public administration.
Perceived as one of the country’s most corrupt sectors, the Albanian judiciary is currently undergoing a long-awaited reform that will scan all judges and prosecutors for their independence from the influence of the organized crime, corruption and political power. The judiciary reform has been set as a key condition for Albania’s opening of EU accession negotiations and improving the business climate by increasing investor confidence.
The three-tier system odyssey, a pensioner’s case
A pensioner seeking fair compensation for his pension benefit has been waiting for about five years to get a final administrative court ruling, Tirana Times has learned. He is one of thousands of households and businesses to undergo the long wait times through the three-tier administrative court system established in late 2013 that has so far failed to reduce the long time needed to settle administrative disputes.
The pensioner’s odyssey began in 2013 when the administrative court system had not been established yet. The man, now about to turn 70, hired a lawyer to file a complaint with the local district court for unfairly having been stripped of 20 years of social security contributions in the pre-1990s when he worked under communism due to a correction in the local registers.
With the establishment of the administrative court system in November 2013, his case was later transferred to the first instance administrative court because of lack of competence by the district court.
While the first instance decision was quite quick and in favour of the pensioner, the decision was appealed by the local social security directorate at the Administrative Appeals Court which dismissed the first instance court ruling on procedural grounds. The pensioner has been awaiting a final High Court decision for about two and half years since October 2014.
While awaiting for about five years to get a final say, the pensioner, who is recently suffering a progressive incurable disease, has been receiving only 5,000 lek (€37) a month as a partial pension, an amount about three times lower compared to a newly calculated 16,000 lek (€115) subsistence level by the Ombudsman’s office.
