TIRANA, Feb. 24 – President of Albania Ilir Meta officially denounced on Tuesday Justice Minister Etilda Gjonaj in the special anti-corruption prosecution stemming from the justice reform for violating the constitution through the procedures she followed in electing a Constitutional Court member.
Meta personally submitted the denunciation to the SPAK offices, where he stated that his main task is to protect the Constitution and the integrity of the Constitutional Court.
“There has never been a more serious event in the history of our state than this mafia act, where recently, based on official evidence, happened also the Justice Ministry’s direct involvement through the violation of many laws and through well-forged falsifications, attempting a coup by openly mafia-seizing a power that the Constitution of the Republic of Albania confers solely on the President of the Republic, with the aim of transforming the Constitutional Court from a guarantee of constitutional rights of Albanian citizens in an anti-constitutional police to violate the rights of Albanian citizens in the future,” said Meta.
Alongside Gjonaj, Meta’s lawsuit also includes two senior officials in that ministry.
Meta has also sued Head of the Justice Appointments Council Ardian Dvorani, calling the procedures followed by the Justice Appointments Council and other institutions to supplement the Constitutional Court’s new members’ appointment as “criminal activity” and a “coup d’etat.
However, according to him, these are not the only Constitutional violations by the Socialist majority.
“There is no place in Europe left a single minute without a High Court. Nowhere has the Attorney General elected with 69 votes, when the Constitution clearly states 84 votes. Nowhere have local elections been held in violation of the Constitution and in violation of the laws of the country, single party elections, which were abhorred by the Congress of Local Authorities themselves, abandoning their observation as non-standard elections. There has never been such a coup to seize the Constitutional Court,” said Meta.
Gjonaj stated that her response would be institutional, and remained prepared to respond to the SPAK legally and to Meta publicly and institutionally.
Socialist majority representatives dismissed Meta’s allegations of a coup as untrue, calling them an attempt to thwart Albania’s integration into the European Union.
