TIRANA TIMES
HIMARA, Aug. 10 – Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said this week a new law on presidential powers is not a priority and might not even be necessary.
The prime minister said that the office of the president operates on the basis of the authority granted by the constitution, and the government, he said, has other things to do and does not intend to draft a bill on the matter.
“I think the basic law of the country has provided all the rights and powers of the president. Can we have a law for the presidency? Most countries do. But, on the other hand, I want to emphasize that the constitutional obligations are more superior than all other legal obligations and the president operates on the basis of constitutional definitions,” Berisha said. “The government itself has no intention of taking any initiatives on a law for the presidency. We
have other things on the agenda.”
A few lawmakers from Berisha’s ruling Democratic Party officially sought a law be put in place to manage the powers of the country’s president, saying the constitution only goes so far in dictating technical details of the job of the head of state.
The move comes as DP’s relations with the president have deteriorated in the past few weeks over judicial appointments.
President Bamir Topi, who used to be DP’s deputy chairman, had put forward the appointment of members of several important courts in the country, but DP lawmakers turned many of them down.
So the Democratic Party, in cooperation with its ally in the government, the Socialist Movement for Integration, requested the drafting and approval of a law on the organization and functioning of the office of the country’s president.
They say this is the only office of its kind in Albania that has no special law other than the constitution to define it.
It’s not the first time such a law is proposed. The idea was first introduced about two years ago by the Socialist Party, which at that time said that the reform of the justice system should involve defining the authority of the head of state.
They had said the law should clearly choose the procedures and deadlines for implementation of the president’s final approval of laws.
These delays have now resulted in disagreement and controversy between the ruling Democrats and President Topi when it comes to choosing the head of the Constitutional Court.
