Constitutional Court decides office ban unconstitutional

TIRANA, March 23 – Albania’s Constitutional Court issued earlier this week the detailed verdict on reversing a law banning former Communist secret police staff and informants from holding public office or serving in the judiciary.
The court found the law, passed in 2008, as unconstitutional.
The decision followed a challenge by the main opposition Socialists, who claimed the ban gave conservative Prime Minister Sali Berisha sweeping powers to target political opponents.
The European Union and the United States had also expressed concern the law fails to comply with international standards of democracy.
The widely feared Sigurimi secret police were instrumental in preserving Albania’s ruthless Communist regime, which ruled for four decades until 1990.
The Court took more than four months to write the detailed 41-page verdict it had decided last year.