 |
| A moment from the vetting process of an Albanian judge, May 2020 |
In Albania, on Tuesday, the Embassy of the United States of America and the Delegation of the European Union, called on the Albanian MPs, through a joint statement, to support the extension of the mandate of the Vetting institutions. The statement comes as on Thursday, parliament will have to vote on the majority proposal for changes to the constitution that would enable the activity of the Independent Qualification Commission (IQC) and public commissioners to be postponed until the end of 2024. The deadline for these two institutions expires in June this year, and it is estimated that by that time, at least 30 percent of judges and prosecutors will not have undergone the re-evaluation process.
The joint statement of the US Embassy and the EU Delegation notes that “in recent years, Albania has made significant progress in EU membership reforms. Among the most difficult but essential steps has been the adoption and implementation of justice reform. We are at an important momentum as justice reform is yielding results." The statement further states that “Vetting of judges and prosecutors is a fundamental element of justice reform. To enable vetting institutions to carry out their mission, it is necessary to amend the constitution to extend their mandate for a limited period. The Venice Commission confirmed that the proposed extension is in line with European standards and is necessary to guarantee equality before the law and legal certainty.
According to the legislation in force, after the end of the mandate of the IQC, the re-evaluation can be done by the High Judicial Council for judges and the High Prosecution Council for prosecutors. But at this stage, as stated in his Opinion and the Venice Commission, such a thing risks leading to inconsistencies in the standards and practices followed so far.
And an analysis conducted earlier by the Institute for Public and Legal Studies (IPLS) estimates that “vetting should end at the same time as the completion of the IQC, which is why the legislator decided to create a body with such specialized power. This reason continues to be actual, despite the existence of the Councils. The ISPL analysis further explains that “the transient reassessment is a process that was decided to take place at a certain point, for a certain group. This process, with the conditions and standards it set, will have to complete the mission for which it was created. The intention of the legislator, when he defined the 5-year mandate of his functioning, was not that after 5 years this body is replaced, but it was that these 5 years were enough for this body to fulfill this task. Only to regulate exceptional cases, if they would be left unresolved, the legislator provided the guarantee that the process would be followed by the Councils."
Approval of the extension requires two-thirds of the votes in parliament or the support of 94 of the 140 deputies. Democrats have had strong criticism of the implementation of Justice reform, and have not yet come up with a firm decision on whether or not to extend the mandate.