TIRANA, July 7 – Albania’s main opposition Democratic Party said this week it would end its boycott of the special parliamentary commission working on judicial reform.
Eduard Halimi, a DP lawmaker, said the decision came after the intervention of international community representatives.
“The ruling parties accepted one of the two opposition demands,” Halimi said, referring to the Democrats wish that the commission be split in half between representatives of the opposition and ruling parties.
“It is a very important requirement in order for reforms to be lasting and not depend solely on a single government mandate,” he added.
So far the judicial reform commission has conducted a detailed analysis of the entire justice system. The 300-page document, the first of its kind, was made public a few weeks earlier and became headline news due to its worrying findings on corruption and other problems in the justice system.
The commission had operated with only ruling coalition lawmakers until the opposition decided to join, nominating five lawmakers to be part of the working teams.
The leftist ruling coalition has set the justice reform as a top priority, and Prime Minister Edi Rama has said it must be completed by September.
The reform has strong backing from Albania’s chief western partners.
Several international representatives, including the U.S. and EU ambassadors, have been outspoken about the prevalent corruption in the Albanian justice system.
The justice system has been post-communist Albania’s weak point and problems in the court system are often mentioned in the international reports as a shortcoming in the country’s modernization efforts.
