Justice delayed for thousands as slowly progressing reform increases Albania court backlog
Story Highlights
- The Supreme Court, which currently has only four out of nine judges, has accumulated a backlog of 30,000 cases at a time when hearing continues for cases submitted as early as 2014. The functioning of the court, where an Administrative College also operates as the highest administrative court instance to settle household and business disputes with the public administration, has been hampered by a slowly progressing vetting process scanning judges and prosecutors over their wealth and failure to establish new justice bodies that would pave the way to new appointments
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TIRANA, Nov. 20 – Slow progress in the implementation of the long-awaited justice reform has led to a sharp increase in the backlog of cases awaiting trial, thousands of which involving business appeals with the administrative courts over controversial decisions by Albanian authorities.
The Supreme Court, which currently has only four out of nine judges, has accumulated a backlog of 30,000 cases at a time when hearing continues for cases submitted as early as 2014. The functioning of the court, where an Administrative College also operates as the highest administrative court instance to settle household and business disputes with the public administration, has been hampered by a slowly progressing vetting process scanning judges and prosecutors over their wealth and failure to establish new justice bodies that would pave the way to new appointments.
Another 12,000 cases await trial at the Administrative Appeals Court, which has only 13 judges to examine appeals from all six administrative courts of first instance that have been operating in the country since late 2013 in a bid to offer faster procedural actions and trials.
A considerable number of cases belong to business disputes with Albanian tax, customs, inspection and public procurement authorities but years of examination in the country’s three-tier administrative court system means huge costs for the country’s business community which is now hoping the justice reform under way will provide faster and fairer access to settle their disputes and restore trust in a system highly perceived as corrupt.
Economy expert Besart Kadia says the slow progress in the implementation of the justice reform has led to a deadlock for the country’s economy.
“Corruption, ill-functioning, lack of integrity, transparency and accountability in the system have been identified and are widely accepted as negative phenomena that are the focus of this crucial reform to change the situation of the justice reform in the country. Yet, the justice reform has also led to a big impasse for the country’s economic life,” Kadia an entrepreneurship secretary at the main opposition Democratic Party, has written in an op-ed published on local media.
According to him, a backlog of dozens of thousands of cases awaiting trial for as many as four years at the country’s appeals and supreme administrative courts has led to many businesses admitting the unfair penalties imposed by state authorities rather than waste time and money for so long in the country’s justice system.
An inefficient judiciary and highly perceived corruption is one of the key concerns for current and potential foreign investors to Albania with major investors often putting costly clauses of international arbitration in settling potential disputes with the government in their Albania investment contracts.
Due to political stalemates preventing the establishment of new bodies to fill vacancies and the launch of a vetting process punishing several judges over failing to justify their wealth, Albania’s Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, and the School of Magistrates training upcoming judges and prosecutors have been paralyzed this year, giving a severe blow to the justice system in the country and undermining public trust in the reform.
The High Judicial Council and High Prosecutorial Council, two key bodies replacing the current inefficient High Council of Justice, have yet to be established and pave the way for new appointments in key courts and prosecutor’s offices.
Artan Hajdari, a renowned lawyer who was also one of the experts involved in the drafting of the justice reform, says the mid-2016 constitutional changes were adopted to increase the recruitment standards for current judges and lawyers undergoing vetting and remove political interference in their appointment which had led to a highly perceived corrupt judiciary despite Albania already having Western standards legislation in place.
Eight judges and prosecutors out of the first sixteen to undergo vetting through a final say have so far failed to pass the vetting process over failing to justify their wealth in a process that began in early 2018 but is slowly progressing and could take years considering more than 750 judges and prosecutors in the country.
The implementation of the justice reform is also one of the key conditions that Albania has to meet as it hopes to launch EU accession talks next year in addition to strengthening rule of law.
An earlier 2016 report by the Albanian Investment Council, a government advisory body, found that administrative courts were failing to examine business appeals in time and about three-quarters of their decisions were in favor of the public administration.
“Administrative courts do not possess capacities to objectively review cases within legal deadlines, taking into account the high number of cases filed in such courts and the limited number of judges,” showed the Investment Council report.
A pensioner’s saga
The inefficient administrative court system and the odyssey in its three-tier system also negatively affects vulnerable people such as pensioners, stripping them of modest benefits to make ends meet.
A pensioner engaged in a legal dispute with authorities over not having 20 years in social security recognized under communism and in the early 1990s in a state-run enterprise that was later privatized has already spent five years in the three-tier administrative court waiting for years to have his case examined before the Supreme Administrative Court decided last summer following an almost four-year wait time that the case had to be re-examined by a new body of the Administrative Appeals Court.
The pensioner who initiated the legal battle in 2013 when administrative court had not yet been established got a decision in his favor by a first instance administrative court in early 2014 before the decision was appealed by the local social security authorities to embark on an odyssey of legal battle that could take another few years to settle.
The 71-year-old pensioner, who is now getting modest partial pension will have to wait for another couple of years in the best case scenario before a final court decision by the Administrative Appeals Court which is currently examining 2016 cases.
While awaiting for about five years to get a final say, the pensioner, who is recently suffering from a progressive incurable disease, has been receiving only 5,000 lek (€40) a month in partial pension, an amount about three times lower compared an estimated 16,000 lek (€115) subsistence level calculated by the Ombudsman’s office.
