MR. METANI’S SPEECH DURING THE ANNUAL REPORT TO THE ALBANIAN PARLIAMENT

Dear Ms. President of the Assembly,

Dear Members of Parliament,

The annual report and its data are in front of you and I would not like to repeat myself, citing the things you have in the report, but I would like to briefly record how, in the role of the High Inspector of Justice, I see the progress of this institution. throughout the year 2023, seeing this, also in relation to the challenges that the justice system has encountered, since the adoption of the justice reform in 2016. Under this lens, I have tried to prepare a presentation of the work of the High Inspector of Justice for the year 2023.

The High Inspector of Justice, within his constitutional powers, is fully committed, even throughout the year 2023, to influence the improvement of the efficiency, transparency, impartiality, independence, professionalism and accountability of the judicial system in Albania.

With these goals in mind, HIJ has attempted to address a number of issues:

First, through the exercise of powers, within the system of accountability of magistrates, handling and verifying a high number of citizen complaints. More specifically, during the year 2023, 2340 complaints received from citizens or institutions were verified. This means that 2340 judicial practices have been verified in all the courts and prosecutor’s offices of the country.

It should be emphasized here that during the year 2023, the handling of the complaints fund inherited from the previous institutions, which were responsible for the disciplinary proceedings of magistrates, until the establishment of the institution of the High Inspector of Justice, was completely processed, thus giving a important message to all citizens and magistrates, for the construction of a tradition that avoids the culture of forgetfulness and impunity, since the verification that the HIJ has done to this fund of inherited complaints, have been investigated and disciplinary proceedings have been requested for some magistrates.

I would like to highlight here, that in the context of examining the claims of the complainants, 44% of the complaints against the magistrates are for claims of non-compliance with the material and procedural law, while 34.5% of the complaints are related to claims against the unjust decision-making of the magistrates during the examination of cases. , 13.4% of complaints are related to delays in the reasoning of court decisions and 8.1% of complaints are related to claims for delays in the trial or investigative activity.

From the 2340 reviewed complaints, it results that 68% of claims were submitted against magistrate judges, 7% to prosecutor magistrates and 22% to judges and prosecutors together. For 77 complaints, the subject against which claims are made is not identified.

From the statistical information of the complaints reviewed during the year 2023, it is noted that the claims against the magistrate judges who exercise their duties at the Court of First Instance of the General Jurisdiction in Tirana constitute the highest number of complaints. Complaints against the magistrates of this court are 15% of the complaints examined in total, followed by claims against the judges who exercise their duties at the Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction, with about 13%. The ranking continues with the Administrative Court of the First Instance of Tirana, with about 6% of complaints examined in total.

Next are the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Fier, the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Elbasan and the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Durrës, with a representation of about 5% each.

Meanwhile, for the magistrates of the Special Court of First Instance for Corruption and Organized Crime and of the Special Court of Appeal for Corruption and Organized Crime, about 2% of the complaints examined in total were submitted.

The courts with the fewest complaints against their magistrates are: the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Berat, the Supreme Court and the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Kukës, with about 1% each.

As for the examined complaints, on the claims against the prosecutors, it results that for the prosecutors who exercise their duties in the Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of First Instance of the General Jurisdiction in Tirana, the highest number of incoming complaints was recorded, with about 6% of complaints reviewed in total. The ranking continues with the Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Durrës, the Prosecutor’s Office at Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Elbasan, the Prosecutor’s Office at Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Fier with about 2% each. For the prosecutors of the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK), about 1% of the complaints examined in total were submitted.

The lowest number of complaints was addressed against the prosecutors who work in the Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Vlorë, the Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction and the Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction Dibër, with about 0.5% of the total complaints examined each.

Considering the importance of a number of institutions in the system, I would like to highlight that during the activity of the HIJ, in these 4 years, the data on the complaints presented and processed by the HIJ are as follows:

Secondly, another direction of HIJ’s work has been the development of disciplinary investigations and the search for disciplinary proceedings. More specifically, 18 disciplinary investigations were conducted against 25 magistrates and 6 disciplinary proceedings were conducted against 6 magistrates.

Thirdly, an important dimension of the work of the High Inspector of Justice has been the performance of thematic inspections. For the year 2023, 2 thematic inspections have been carried out, but I would like to emphasize here, that from January of this year until now, 4 more inspections have been completed, in all the courts and prosecutor’s offices of the country, including the Supreme Court, Special Courts and Special Prosecutor’s Office. All inspection reports are available on the institution’s website. Regarding these thematic inspections, it should be noted that there is a positive reaction from the inspected bodies, which have implemented the recommendations left by the High Inspector of Justice. On this occasion, I would like to thank in front of you all the institutions for their cooperation.

Transparency of the institution has been another priority of the Office of the High Inspector of Justice. For the transparency achieved, the High Inspector of Justice is ranked first among all institutions of the country, in the “Index of proactive transparency of central and dependent institutions” for the year 2023, of the Commissioner for the Right to Information, as the institution that has all positive indicators of a high proactive transparency.

In addition to the results of 2023, the priorities set for 2024 are the continuation and improvement in all dimensions of the activity of the Office of the High Inspector of Justice. The completion of the reviewing of the inherited complaints fund has given the institution more breathing space and we expect that this will affect the increase in efficiency, in time and quality, through the examination of a higher number of complaints.

On the other hand, although efforts have been made, the implementation of a modern electronic system requires more advancement and close cooperation between the bodies, for the adoption of technical standards for information technology issues for the bodies of the justice system, which will facilitate the exchange of information, and consequently will affect the efficiency of the institutions’ activity.

I want to bring to your attention that the activity of 2023 has not been an easy process, and therefore, even throughout this year, HIJ has faced a series of challenges within the framework of exercising its constitutional powers, as well as the bodies of other new parts of the justice system, which must be admitted, are not functioning according to their maximum capacities, as a result of a continuous process of implementing justice reform. For the fourth year in a row, for the High Inspector of Justice, it remains necessary to complete the unit of inspectors, especially those of the magistrate profile, as an irreplaceable tool for further increasing the institution’s performance. The cooperation of other justice institutions in this regard remains a necessity.

Dear Members of Parliament,

Despite different sensitivities, it must be accepted that due to and within the framework of this reform, the justice system has achieved results that show the right direction, where this reform should continue. There are several milestones that have already been set:

• Through the vetting process, results were achieved regarding the integrity of magistrates;
• Efforts have been made to strengthen the independence of the judiciary by reducing political influence and ensuring that magistrates exercise their duties independently;
• New institutions have been created and a genuine mechanism has been conceived for the professional and career development and training of magistrates;
• Through legislative changes, institutes or procedural mechanisms have been created to increase the efficiency of judicial power, including digitization and efficiency of judicial processes;
• The standards for the protection of human rights in the judicial system have been increased, ensuring a fairer and more equal treatment for all citizens before the law.

However, much remains to be done! Today it is established that the efficiency of the justice system is not at its best level. Today, the justice system is facing a shortage of magistrates, as a result of the development of the transitory reassessment process, vetting. This lack of magistrates has resulted in the creation of a very large workload in the courts and the prosecutor’s office. This load has undoubtedly brought extraordinary delays in the examination of court cases and this has been another problem, which the High Inspector of Justice has addressed through his inspections throughout 2023 and continues to prioritize it this year as well.

Of course, the challenge of the High Inspector of Justice remains the balancing and the state of a fair balance on the one hand through the identification and assessment, of the personal responsibility of the magistrates and on the other hand, of the conditions or the extraordinary workload of their work, due to of the lack of human resources, infrastructure or their low number in the system. Even in this case, the High Inspector of Justice has tried to guide the courts or prosecutor’s offices with the criteria to be followed, in relation to these problems or difficulties.

But on the other hand, the time has been considerable and sufficient for the establishment of new bodies of justice, as well as making them functional. Also, the entire judicial system has been reorganized within the framework of the New Judicial Map, bringing challenges, until the justice system finds the right balance and standard. It should not be forgotten that during these years we have been ahead of the application of a new legislation, both material and procedural, as well as in relation to the organization and functioning of the new bodies of the justice system. Undoubtedly, even the implementation of this new legal framework has brought its own professional debates, reflected in various administrative practices or jurisprudence.

Undoubtedly, there have been cases of commenting on judicial decisions, criticism of them, even to the point of anathematizing the work of judges and prosecutors or magistrates nominally. Even from public opinion. Even from politics. It is not easy for the magistrates, but I appreciate that this is a process and a challenge that must be faced by them, since in this case the right of the public should prevail over the supervision of their work, why not also the commitment in a way directly in the process of administration of justice. What needs to be said is that the often excessive level of criticism towards their work does not affect or diminish the guarantees that the Constitution has given for the independence of judges and prosecutors, in their work and decision-making discretion.

For the sake of truth, it must be said that all these are difficulties, for which the citizens have shown maximum understanding and beyond the ordinary and besides the high expectations and trust of the public, the understanding shown so far is another responsibility, which falls directly on the bodies of the justice system. And in this context, the challenge of the new bodies of justice today remains precisely the maintenance of the balance between the expectations, trust and understanding of the public and other factors in society, in relation to the real possibility of the bodies of justice today, to ultimately provide a justice system with integrity which is independent, efficient and responsible.

If the justice system faces deficiencies or problems in terms of integrity, independence or efficiency, this is not only the responsibility of the magistrates. These problems require a clear addressing and careful solution, in a systemic aspect and cannot be addressed only through the system of the responsibility of the magistrates, as is constantly claimed, on the role and functions of the institution of the High Inspector of Justice.

I want to emphasize that from the moment of its creation, until today, the Office of the High Inspector of Justice has played a proactive role in relation to the identification and investigation of disciplinary violations committed by magistrates. And this work model will continue in the future and always, but always respecting the principles of a regular legal process and relying on an important cornerstone of the rule of law and democracy of a country, such as the independence of the system judicial.

These work standards of the High Inspector of Justice were also confirmed during 2023 by the competent bodies for their review. Thus, out of 1622 decisions taken by the HIJ to archive and close the disciplinary investigation, only 70 archiving decisions were appealed, or expressed as a percentage, 4.3% of the archiving decisions were appealed. As for 9 decisions to close the disciplinary investigation, there was no complaint. Of all the appeals submitted against the decisions of the HIJ during the year 2023, there are 0 decisions returned for review, a result that remains unchanged, since the first year of the work of the High Inspector of Justice, since in all cases, The councils or Special Appeals Chamber have decided to reject as unfounded the appeal presented by the complainants against the decisions of the High Inspector of Justice, and consequently none of the decisions of the High Inspector of Justice has been overturned.

As was evident above, the justice system today has problems. In this context, in order to address this stage of development and the problems of the system today, in my personal point of view, we must take into consideration the fact, as well as we must clearly understand, that the reform in justice is a very important undertaking and commitment for the Albanian society. The implementation of justice reform is definitely the duty of justice institutions. But such a deep, long and complex process, in terms of social and political values, that this reform aims to cultivate in Albanian society, necessarily requires the commitment of the political and institutional system, as well as the Albanian society as a whole.

This process must go through a safe development stage, offering long-term solutions and vision, analyzing all positive or negative factors from an administrative, legal or financial point of view, which may affect its slowdown or normal progress.

This process requires a maximum assessment and the implementation of a sustainable and comprehensive policy:

• In terms of the conception and development of policies, since first of all the reform in justice was conceived and led by the Assembly of Albania, within a political process;
• In terms of the new institutional body, according to the standards of the European Union, since the reform in justice has foreseen a new architecture of the justice system, as well as
• In the procedural aspect, which has to do with administrative, legal or financial mechanisms, within the framework of its implementation and implementation in practice.

This approach may require more time, but it is the surest path towards the constitutional implementation of the justice reform. This is my personal point of view regarding the current situation of the progress of the Justice Reform, in relation to the justice institutions today.

For this reason, I want to emphasize once again, as far as I have been consistent in my expressed positions, both before the Law Commission, but also before this honorable hall, asking the Assembly of the Republic to exercise its very important role important in the framework of the cooperation and coordination of the activity of justice institutions, not only as a drafter and creator of the reform in justice in Albania, but also as a strong promoter of its realization.

Thank you for your attention!