Government resumes polemics with president, prosecutor general

TIRANA, May 14 – The squabbling between the government with the president and prosecutor general resumed Thursday on the Day of Justice in the country.
Justice Minister Ilir Rusmajli harshly accused the judiciary of corruption and supporting crime links in his speech at the ceremony on the justice day.
“Without a European judiciary, Albania cannot claim to enter Europe,” he said. “Lack of professionalism, of transparency, corruption, and lack of efficiency and of its honesty put in doubt the seriousness of integration by a democratic society.”
Two days earlier Rusmajli had also asked the High Council of Justice, or KLD, headed by President Alfred Moisiu to urgently convene to fire Artan Gjermeni, one of its members, following alleged links to a crime gang.
Moisiu responded that the KLD would convene according to its rules, in mid May and not whenever someone wanted to. That renewed the conflict Moisiu has had with the government since he refused to fire Prosecutor General Theodhori Sollaku, accused by the government of being corrupt.
That was noted also at Thursday’s ceremony when Sollaku responded to Rusmajli’s claims of corruption in the judiciary saying that the minister should immediately go and open penal cases against all officials whom he has proof of wrong-doing.
At the same time, Gjermeni has asked the Supreme Court to open a penal case of defamation against Rusmajli, who has accused him of being linked to crime.
Since the new government came to power in September 2005 there has been no collaboration with the president, who has often turned down, or returned to parliament without decreeing many draft laws presented by the government and passed in the parliament dominated by the ruling Democratic party-led coalition.