Procrastination of court proceedings for over 20 years in Albania causes costs that go over 10 million leks or about 8000 euros spent to reach at the final of a simple court decision.
"In these 19 years I have spent a lot of money. Over 8 thousand euros to lawyers and merrely letters, there is a lot of lost time,” says the landowner Sajmir Maloku to Euronews Albania.
"Regarding the costs related to citizens, it should be noted that the main costs go to lawyers, which are costs of hundreds of thousands of leks depending on the type of case. The fact of extensions of these cases creates great costs, especially in the case of property courts," - says Professor Igli Tola.
If we talk about concrete figures, a civil lawsuit often goes to the value of 500,000 new leks or 5 million old. And this is artificial, as the basic costs are these: Filing a lawsuit that costs 3,000 leks, 1% tax that is paid, the bill of the lawyer, expert or psychologist. Under normal conditions, the value one pays for the civil court is 20,000 - 70,000 new lek. But from all this procrastination the costs only increase reaching to millions. Add the compensation from the losing party, the numbers continue to rise.
"According to the Albanian legislation, the losing party pays the court costs, but this includes costs for filing a lawsuit, the lawyer, but there are also indirect costs such as the loss of the working day when going to court or transportation costs which are not reimbursed," said the professor.
These costs that the professor mentioned above are not only for individuals but also for the state budget.
"Direct costs, direct costs in terms of related to the costs of plaintiffs and defendants, but also the state budget is affected by this. Currently we have over 36,000 pending files waiting to be tried or retried," - says Professor Igli Tola.
"But I am also very disappointed with the system, as they kept us for years and years. I have wandered the courts so much that I have created the conviction that there is a hotbed of corruption," he said.
The Vetting process is seen by experts as one more reason leading to delays in litigation.
"The extension and achievement of a solution is complex and in recent years has come for a number of reasons ranging from legal changes, implementation of the Vetting process, removal of judges or the pandemic of the earthquake," - says the lawyer Evi Kolovani.
The removal of some judges from the system has translated into a larger workload for others. According to Professor Igli Tola, the problem must be found and solved.
"The judiciary should function as a private institution to set targets, objectives, and each employee to be accountable for achieving the objectives. It must be found which link of the system has a malfunction," says the professor.
Despite all the causes and circumstances that bring about the phenomenon of decades of procrastination of trials, the result for citizens is the same; loss of confidence in the justice system.