Rama: Fighting corruption and bringing justice system to European standards are the country’s next top priorities.
TIRANA, July 14 – The administration of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama, in coalition with the Socialist Movement for Integration of Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta, organized a public event Monday to show off achievements of its first 300 days in office.
Rama said that without the hard work of his cabinet during the first months in office the country would not had achieved EU candidate status.
The status was granted to Albania last month, after the EU member countries decided in December to hold on the decision asking for tangible results from the new Albanian government.
“No doubt such an achievement was not exclusivity of these 300 days and not of the alliance of the SP and SMI the LSI. But no doubt, without such an alliance, without these 300 days and without the vote of June 23, and, without the foreign minister and the minister of integration in the post these 300 days, Albania would not be granted the candidate status,” Rama said.
Rama said there had been economic success as well, saying they were handed over an economically-failed state, with a lot of hidden debts and no cash reserves.
The premier also mentioned what he said was freedom regained for people that were no longer under political pressure in their jobs and for the media not fearing any executive pressure due to their editorial line — a greater freedom of communication.
He also said that the parliament and the daily life showed a different communication they had with the opposition, giving it total freedom at the parliament and more.
“That’s a fact that makes Albania more European that it was 300 days ago,” said Rama.
The prime minister was open to criticize the president, prosecutor general and the High Council of Justice, or the KLD, for a lack of work in the reforms of the justice system and more.
Rama said that though they are not happy with President Bujar Nishani — who was elected by the former governing Democrats when they were in power two years ago, without reaching a consensus with the Socialists, then in opposition — they have not turned to harsh language against him as the predecessors had done with unfavorable presidents.
The premier also said he was not happy with Prosecutor General Adriatik Llalla, also nominated from the Democrats then in power, who had some 350 filed charges for corruption from the public posts and officials and had not acted to bring a single case to conclusion in the courts.
Rama also said that they were not happy with the KLD functioning, which he also accused of trying to attack the government, which he considered not appropriate for an independent institution. KLD is headed by the country’s president and is the highest constitutionally mandate body in charge of the judiciary.
Fighting corruption and bringing justice system to European standards is the country’s next top priority, Rama said.
The governing Socialists and their allies will use their overwhelming majority in parliament to undertake a series of reforms for the KLD, the president’s powers in the KLD, the organization of the prosecutors and the judges.
Albania’s justice system has always been its Achilles’ heel during the post-communist period of more than two decades. It has always been mentioned as a weak point from the international reports and the EU.
Following the EU’s candidate status it seems the EU member countries have made it plain clear to the country’s leadership that without bringing justice to European standards they should forget about further progress in the integration process, government officials said.
Fighting crime and corruption, bringing police back on full duty, as Rama put it , were the other major achievements these first 300 days.
Rama stressed the great work police had done in a big operation in the southern village of Lazarat, considered as lawless and beyond the country’s borders until last month.
Lazarat served as a center of cultivating marijuana and distributing it around the continent. Police confiscated some 70 tons of marijuana and destroyed some 134,000 cannabis plants.
The prime minister also claimed another success — turning the partnership with neighboring Kosovo into a strategic one with concrete results in practice.
Rama said that they will try to dismiss the country’s image of being linked with the crime. “We shall tell to the world with facts that Albanians not only deserve to be evaluated more, but also to be loved more,” he said.
“We have not forgotten any promise,” he said, referring then to the reforms in the education system and the employment process.
He said that during these 300 days, 43,879 people had found jobs. The Socialists have promised to create 300,000 new jobs in their first mandate, which runs for three more years.
Rama concluded with turning back to the reform in justice. Corruption in justice system is endemic. And there have been no efforts to punish any judge or prosecutor or any other person in the system.
Albanians have little trust in their justice system as many are forced to to spend a lot of money to bribe prosecutors and judges in the trials and the investigation processes, Rama said. The premier said that it is clear nothing has been done for the judges who break the law and release criminals who have the re-offend.
Rama said that the next parliamentary session that starts in September will be the one when the majority in the parliament “will establish the missed part of its own profile, continuing to refer to the June 23 vote imposing it on the reform in justice and the uncompromising fight against all the corruption and all those who declare on behalf of the institutions … against the government, against the majority elected from the Albanian people, with a language reminding us of the dark times when it was used to threaten individuals,” he said referring to the KLD explicitly.
The other major reform is the territorial one that is expected to conclude with the end of the parliament session later this month, Rama said.
