TIRANA, Aug. 7 – Although the justice reform’s Independent Qualification Commission reconfirmed to duty the Head of the High Court Xhezair Zaganjori last week, the International Monitoring Operation, monitoring body composed of European and US experts, recommended to the Public Commissioners to appeal the IQC’s decision on Monday.
Through an official announcement, the Public Commissioners said that after they receive a written notice of the IQC’s decision, they will look into it alongside the IMO’s recommendation.
The decision to reconfirm Zaganjori was taken on July 24, giving the IQC 30 days, according to the law, to give a written notice to the commissioners, who then have fifteen days to decide if they will approve the appeal.
It is still unclear why the IMO suggested to appeal the decision, although the IQC itself mentioned a series of problems that it had found during an in-depth investigation in Zaganjori’s wealth.
According to the report read during the initial hearing, Zaganjori had made inaccurate, insufficient and fictitious statements, while also lacking the financial sources statements for an apartment owned by him in the centre of Tirana, an office, a basement and a shop.
All these properties were included in one single building which, according to Zaganjori, was not purchased but built on land inherited by his wife’s family.
However, the IQC also raised allegations that he had not paid his state obligations from collected rents and that there were discrepancies in the cost he’d declared for his children’s education, which the IQC says was higher.
Zaganjori, who, in addition to monthly salaries and rent, had also declared high financial earnings from working at an institute in Germany, said he’d offered the IQC 40 pages worth of explanations for all questions raised during the process, and asked to be reconfirmed to duty.
The case of Zaganjori is similar to that of the head of the Constitutional Court Bashkim Dedja. The latter was also reconfirmed by the IQC and again the IMO requested the decision to be appealed.
