Tirana Times
TIRANA, Aug. 3 – Albania’s ruling Democratic Party is officially seeking that 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 down 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.
However, Albania’s parliament is currently in summer recess and the nomination and the new law will have to wait for the beginning of the new parliamentary session in September.
Some analysts think that after this latest spat there may be new developments in the relationship between the president at the ruling party.
In their allegations against Topi, the ruling Democrats used Article 90 of the Constitution to make a case. That article is about the president’s dismissal procedures, which means they are potentially threatening the president with impeachment.
However this controversy and the draft law is testing the coalition relationship between DP and SMI, which appears to have seen better days, despite their leaders’ statements that function normally. SMI has come out publicly in support of the president.
