Washington DC, 13 November 2023
First of all, it is a pleasure for me to be here today and talk about such matters and to share these ideas with you. Constitutionalism is a main topic not only in Albania but in all modern societies, in all democratic societies.
It is a dynamic concept changing from time to time. when I prepared myself for this discussion (talk), the first thing that came to my mind was the dilemma that exists in finding the right balance between a stable, solid governing and the protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms of the individual. I believe that finding such a balance depends within the society. It depends on the level of the involvement of society, the political, media, legal actors and its institutions. with such background, Albania made its biggest legal reform in 2016 and out of this reform came out institutions like: High Judicial Council, High Inspector of Justice, High Prosecution Council, Independent Qualification Commission, Appeal Chamber etc where it is worth mentioning that each of us has its own field of activity where it is not an easy task to implement the competences because not everything depends on the law, not everything depends on the constitutionalism and in legal provisions. when the High Inspector of Justice started working, the first thing indicated to our inspectors was the defining of the philosophical line which would go through our institution. In our mind, we have to keep the right balance between the public interest in seeing how the judges and the prosecutors administer justice but on the other hand is equally important to preserve the sovereignty of the judges and prosecutors, not as a shield of their work but as a mean to preserve the essence of justice. Nevertheless, we believe that in trying to implement our competences it is not only enough the work of our institutions. In order for us to provide constitutionalism principles, we need the work of each segment of our society, political, media, civil society organisations bringing together the values of constitutionalism. As it is defined in its’s duty, The High Inspector of Justice is focused in assessing the work of all judges and prosecutors in the Republic of Albania observing their decisions whereas in some cases we have started investigations against the judges and prosecutors and have proposed disciplinary measures to be taken against them in the respective councils, specifically in the High Judicial Council for the judges and High Prosecution Council for the prosecutors.
As I mentioned earlier, constitutionally speaking defining the boundaries when we must investigate a judge/prosecutor it is not something easy or something written clearly because these boundaries need to be reviewed thoroughly, to be comply with and also to be explainable to the society. That’s why the interaction between the people of the society and the justice institutions is crucial to help each other, in order to implement and keep the highest working standard regarding the judges and prosecutors. we have implemented new tools and ways, to make them feel free and not intimidated expressing their opinion but also in asking any kind of information towards the law institutions. On the other hand, I expect the highest standards from civil society organisations in trying to provide us with their insights and their suggestions so we can better explain to the people what our duties consist off.
One thing I should mention is something that sometimes in the judicial organs is not often talked about, it’s the transparency. Transparency, I think is very important in the judicial organs because at the end of the day, they are public organs. They must be transparent for their decision-making process. In the light of this observation and regarding the balance between institutions like us, we have held meetings with law schools, civil society meetings, interviews with local televisions networks and something else worth mentioning is an experimental project we have developed like holding meetings for promoting of the anti-corruption in the elementary schools. This has turned to be a great experience not only giving the children some future values but also learning more about the mentality and the inside thoughts of the younger generation.
In short, we have tried to put the principles of constitutionalism in action which are a lot being the main ones such as transparency, being open, objectivity. I truly believe there are things that must be installed in our society, because again, the independence of judges/prosecutors, constitutionalism in Albania and everywhere cannot go forward without the involvement of the society, political factors, media etc. we can’t have an independent judicial system without a democratic environment and vice versa we can’t have a democratic environment without a independent judicial system. It may sound like a game of words, but I strongly believe that the reforms can’t succeed if we don’t find or don’t see what the future has to gain from them. It is us that we must create the foundations for the generations to come. This is not easy because political factors and legal actors need to show ‘’big’’ results. we have the same aim but different tools but, in the end the main goal is sharing and promoting constitutionalism and achieving higher standards. For any question you might have, I would be happy to answer them.
Question: In the progress report issued last week by the European Union, the only chapter with an ‘A’ evaluation or with a positive evaluation was the chapter regarding the justice reform, specifically the justice institutions, so a good progress has been made. My question is what are the most important challenges that the newly created justice reform and legal institutions face, not only when it comes to the European Integration process, but also when it comes to the challenges that Albanian society is facing per se?
The High Inspector of Justice Artur Metani: Well, I am very happy about the progress report, but I think that shouldn’t be our main goal in showing successes in the progress reports. I think our goal regarding the today topic (the development of the constitutionalism) should be part of a set of values of our society and our legal actors. Regarding the challenges, I think this is the biggest challenge. We can talk about lack of human resources, the need to build higher standards and so on, but I think the most important thing we have to establish, is implementing in the society of how important it is to have an independent judicial system. Of course, everybody likes an independent judicial system, but this means that we should not agree with the judicial system when it takes decisions that we like, but also when it takes decisions that we don’t like. Unless we try to establish such a relation between the society, media, political factors and justice institutions, there will always be a big challenge to overcome. As I said earlier, in my opinion this is the biggest challenge and probably it will take a lot of time to achieve this high standard. If we don’t see the solution of our everyday problems with a long-term vision and be only focused on the heat of the debate of the moment, we are going to prolong our agony and our efforts in achieving the standards we aspire to have for our justice system.
Question: Your opinion on what should be the balance between politics and justice institutions and how these two can interfere without stepping on the boundaries of each other in order to have an optimal relation and to go forward in the development of the justice system? How can justice institutions be protected against the influence of the politics?
The High Inspector of Justice Artur Metani: First, I think the politicians and the parliament have the duty to monitor and to criticize whenever they think they need to criticize our work. They need to comment on our work. Second, I think is the free speech. It is a very powerful principle because everybody should have the freedom to speak even regarding the work of justice system. On the other hand, we have only one strong instrument which is transparency. The moment we are transparent, we are making progress in decision-making with all the arguments of our insights. The moment we have clear decisions and simple decisions, I think we have won our battles with everyone, because we have given everyone our ideas on why we thought so (regarding the decision-making) and why we decided so. Some people may criticise it, some people may agree with it, but that’s democracy. It is our duty to be transparent as much as possible so that everyone can see what we think inside and see what politicians criticise based on all grounds. The difficulty is that the quality of the words, the quality of the freedom of speech must be in accordance with the democracy so once again the only instrument to protect ourselves is transparency.
