Judiciary targeted from all sides

TIRANA, Nov. 14 – President Alfred Moisiu created Monday a task force with representatives from the Judicial Conference, Supreme Court and the High Council of Justice in an effort to check what other reforms are needed to bring judiciary back on a normal track following accusation from the European Commission progress report for 2006. Judiciary was considered to be the weakest and most corrupted institution in the country.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha launched another harsh attack following recent clashes the government has had with the above-mentioned institutions, including the president. “The government of justice is a bastion of corruption and organized crime in the country, it is a factor of punishment for the nation,” he told reporters Tuesday. “Those who have been caught from head to foot from corruption cannot reform the system of justice,” he said. Berisha considered the situation as very grave and added they would soon present a draft law on the investigation of prosecutor-general Theodhori Sollaku. ‘that prosecutor is totally caught from crime.”
In a government meeting Thursday Berisha did not spare harsh words toward Sollaku and the High Council of Justice accusing them of lack of will to fight corruption and crime and of being part of crime. He stressed that the government audit of the institutions should be stepped up against corrupted practices. “There is a shameful pact with grave consequences for the nation, of the kleptocrats of the HCJ and prosecutor office,” said Berisha at the meeting. “I guarantee Albanians that with legal and democratic tools this group of usurpers will take the deserved place.”
The Ministry of Justice publicly accused the prosecutor office for not starting cases of corruption and appealed to prosecutors to separate themselves from their head. The ministry also published statistics for the first half this year on corruption cases. It said it would make the same thing every three months. That is more another attack on Sollaku. It results that prosecutor office and courts have not been ‘powerful’ toward penal case of corruption and abuse of posts, according to a statement, adding that many cases involving senior officials have been suspended. “The Ministry of Justice expresses its concern for the stressed lack of starting penal cases from the prosecutor office,” it said. “We hail any initiative in the fight against corruption while we are skeptical on the President’s initiative because he has had the possibilities to fight such a phenomenon before,” Justice Minister Aldo Bumci said Tuesday at a news conference.
Prosecutor-General office responded Thursday saying that the executive had filed no complaint or opened any case against corruption during the first half this year. The spokesman also said that there were many irregular figures in what the justice minister said a day earlier. “The institution of prosecutor office believes that major issues for the country’s fate, like those linked with the fight against corruption, cannot be solved with mediatic and demagogic statements,” said a statement.