TIRANA, Nov. 3,6 – Albania’s judiciary tolerance to corruption was the main target of criticism of two reports published Friday and Monday from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Transparency International watchdog respectively.
OSCE
On Friday the OSCE report said that Albania must strengthen its judiciary by improving access to lawyers for criminal suspects and encouraging a robust appeals process, according to its second report since it began a project to improve Albania’s judiciary in 2003. The 246-page report says legal guidelines are often violated, creating the “impression of a justice system that is neither fair, nor independent.” The report said one way to improve the situation would be to ensure workers receive fair salaries and benefits to “immunize” them against corruption. “Few concrete measures have as of yet been taken to tackle corruption within the justice system,” the report said. Describing key areas were improvement needs to be made, the report said suspects were not informed of their rights, were regularly abused by police and did not have timely access to lawyers. The report also said lawyers did little to challenge questionable decisions by courts and conditions in pretrial detention were below international standards. The OSCE also called on Albania to do more to bring domestic violence cases to trial, noting that such crimes were underreported, under-investigated, under-prosecuted and under-sentenced.
The paper examined the extent to which the procedural and human rights of persons detained on remand were respected by Albanian courts and prosecutors. It also focused on the effectiveness of the defense, the corruption in the judiciary, ways domestic violence cases were handled, as well as the access to information. “Although the Albanian justice system has seen significant progress, there is still need for further improvement in order to create a stable and transparent justice system based on the rule of law,” said Alex Finnen, Deputy Head of the OSCE Presence. “Legal rules are frequently not respected or are abused in order to achieve ‘desired’ but not necessary lawful results.” “In recognition of the fundamental nature of the right to a fair trial, OSCE participating States have committed themselves to permit national and international observers to monitor trials. It is to Albania’s credit that its judiciary has participated fully and wholeheartedly in the process,” added Alex Finnen. The OSCE Presence said it was ready to assist the Albanian authorities in their efforts to improve the country’s justice system.
Transparency International
Transparency International left Albania among the most corrupted countries in the world, at the 111 place out of 163, despite a 15-seat improvement compared to last year, according to the Transparency International’s 2006 corruption perception index made public Monday. “Albania’s ranking at the same quota with Laos, Yemen and Zambia reflect the negative situation of corruption in the country and the public perception for such a phenomenon in Albania,” said Kreshnik Spahiu, head of the non-governmental organization Citizens’ Protection Office representing TI in the country, at a news conference. The TI’s corruption perceptions index is a composite index that draws on multiple expert opinion surveys that poll perceptions of public sector corruption in 163 countries around the world. It scores countries on a scale from zero to ten, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and ten indicating low levels of perceived corruption. “That has been favored from the existence of the tolerance of the justice system to corruption by registering negative records of the court statistics,” said Spahiu. “In Albania there is still no minister, parliamentarian, mayor, party leader or any other top official of any constitutional institution penally sentenced from any court.”
Transparency International recommended to Albanian institutions to prepare a long-term national strategy on prevention and the fight against corruption; to strengthen penal policies and encourage actions against corrupted officials; carry out radical reforms in the court and prosecutor offices, and strengthen and harshen penal sanctions on corruption cases. “We believe that only deepening of transparency, legal clean-up of the public and court administration from the corrupted officials, judges and prosecutors and penal punishment may bring a qualitative and immediate step in building a state of the rule of law and the possibility to go ahead with the same rhythm with the countries in the region that aspire integration into the European Union,” Spahiu said. Albania, a tiny Balkan country of about 3.2 million, is working to put in action the EU Stabilization and Association Agreement it signed this June, considered a first step toward possible EU membership. This week the European Commission is to report on Albania’s progress on economic and democratic reforms. The international community has told Albania it must fight corruption, curb human trafficking, and improve the judiciary and its administration if it wants to join the European Union and NATO.
