High Inspector of Justice, Mr. Artur Metani, presented to the Assembly, in a plenary session, the HIJ activity for 2021.
During this reporting year, the High Inspector of Justice Office priority was the reduction of the backlog inherited from other institutions (2,104 unhandled or partially handled complaints) and the completion of inspection staff.
In order to avoid the culture of impunity and forgetting, noted the High Inspector of Justice, those documentary practices are treated according to a priority order based on criteria such as: date of delivery, stage of treatment by previous bodies, typology or urgency of treatment of the complaint to avoid the effect of prescription. At the same time, attention is paid to the denunciations that have come to the HIJ since February 1, 2020, the time when the institution was established.
“Obviously, in fulfilling this objective there is a slowing factor – lack of inspection capacities”, said Mr. Metani, bringing to attention that during 2020, HIJ worked with only 1 inspector inherited from the former HCJ, while since February 2021 it has been working with 8 inspectors whereas the organization foresees 26. “The lack of inspectors remains our challenge, it is a concern that HIJ has repeated during this year, especially the need for judge inspectors”.
“As of today, there are over 4,700 confirmed complaints at the HIJ, compared to 3,054 ones at the end of 2020. This shows that citizens trust our institution and have high expectations. With the existing capacities of the HIJ, during 2021, there were made 22 decisions to start the disciplinary investigation for 31 subjects of the disciplinary investigation,” said the High Inspector of Justice.
In the report presented to the Assembly, it is stated that the disciplinary violations which the High Inspector of Justice has started the disciplinary investigation for, are listed in disciplinary violations while performing their duties but also outside work as well as disciplinary violations due to the commission of the criminal offenses with final decisions that discredit the position and image of the magistrate or seriously damage the public’s trust in the judicial system or the prosecution, based on the facts and circumstances accepted by the court. The proposed disciplinary measures ranged from reprimand to dismissal. From the disciplinary investigation for 21 magistrates, during 2021, the HIJ has proposed the initiation of disciplinary proceedings for 17 magistrates (11 judges and 6 prosecutors), or for 81% of the investigated cases, while it has decided to close the disciplinary investigation for 4 magistrates.
“I would like to point out that out of the 17 proceedings, 7 of them came as a result of reviewing complaints submitted by citizens, which account for 41% of disciplinary proceedings.” said Mr. Metani, underlining that handling as many complaints as possible continues to be a priority of the institution for 2022, “because unfortunately, the problematics of 3 decades of transition are still reflected in justice and citizens want to see things change when finding their right in the face of the problems they encounter in the system, in the prosecutor’s office or the courts. I also have a personal sensitivity to this,” said the High Inspector of Justice, closing his speech with a reminder for the draft amendments submitted to the Assembly by the HIJ, to address this situation, through the review of the criteria that magistrates must fulfil in order to be assigned as inspector at the Office of the High Inspector of Justice, or for any other solution the Assembly could offer.
