TIRANA, Jan. 30 – The list of ten selected candidates to be appointed to the High Council of Prosecution (HCP) and the High Judicial Council (HJC) – new bodies part of the justice reform – was voted down in parliament last Thursday.
The reason is that the country’s opposition said it sees the candidates selected as illegitimate, because they allegedly don’t meet the legal requirements for the post on professional and moral grounds.
This week, new candidates were shortlisted among lawyers, professors and civil society representatives. Two former candidates are no longer running, after the opposition’s public complaints.
Saimir Visha resigned, saying he refused to be appointed based on a draw and not as a result of political consensus for the functionality of the country’s new judicial organs.
Altin Hazizaj, on the other hand, was disqualified after the parliament added a missing document from the prosecution in his evaluation portfolio.
The document disqualifies Hazizaj on the grounds of the decriminalization law, under which a crime committed but not declared by Hazizaj was discovered.
Oerd Bylykbashi, Democratic MP, said only a politically corrupt affair can produce these kind of candidates.
Socialist MP Ulsi Manja, however, said this is just the opposition’s way to delegitimize the process and block the implementation of the country’s judicial reform.
Meanwhile, Kozma Jano, who was accused of being tied to Albania’s notorious Sigurimi communist-era secret police and who is still part of the candidates, is undergoing a detailed investigation by the Authority for Information on documents of the State’s Former Security.
This is the result of the opposition publishing documents which allegedly proved lawyer Jano was once a cooperator of Sigurimi.
According to the authority, this investigation is relevant because during the first examination of documents no traces of the alleged cooperation were found as parts of the generalities were filled in with mistakes, while the authority was also not in possession of all files.
Nonetheless, first investigations have shown the proof published by the Democratic Party (DP) concerning Jano is not part of the authority’s available documentation.
Jano previously reacted to the DP’s accusation, saying he was never a cooperator of Sigurimi. According to the DP, however, he was even part of the Mezini Commission established in 1995 to prevent opposition members at the time from running for office.
Concerning Jano’s case, Manja said that further judicial evidence against him could provide ground for argument and discussion concerning his candidacy.
If the list of candidates doesn’t get approved with 94 votes for three times in a row in parliament, the final list compiled will be considered approved even if it lacks parliamentary consensus.
However, this way the establishment of the HCP and the HJC won’t be final until the vetting process of judges and prosecutors is complete.
