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| President of the Albanian Constitutional Court Holta Zaçaj |
The Constitutional Court of Albania announced today that it has decided to suspend the procedures initiated by the parliament for the approval of the agreement on migrants, signed last month in Rome between Prime Minister Edi Rama and his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni. The agreement envisaged the establishment of two centers on Albanian territory for receiving migrants intercepted in international waters by Italian authorities' vessels. Both centers, one in the port of Shëngjin for collecting personal data and the initial verification of migrants, and the other in Gjadër, where they are supposed to stay until the completion of asylum procedures, were expected to be under Italian jurisdiction, with all expenses covered by the Italian side.
The agreement was opposed from the beginning by the opposition. Last week, the Democratic Party led by Mr. Lulzim Basha, as well as deputies affiliated with the groups of former Prime Minister Sali Berisha and Mr. Gazmend Bardhi, turned to the Constitutional Court with two separate lawsuits, seeking the declaration of the agreement as incompatible with the country's constitution and the suspension of its ratification procedures in parliament.
The agreement received approval from parliamentary committees, convened online, with the presence of only socialist deputies. Parliament's approval was initially scheduled for December 21, but two days earlier, the socialists decided to accelerate the ratification for the next session, likely to avoid the intervention of the Constitutional Court.
The President of the Court, Holta Zaçaj, announced the procedure followed for the case this afternoon. "The Constitutional Court, on December 11, 2023, after preliminary consideration of the case, decided to refer it for consideration to the Judges' Assembly. The Judges' Assembly, convened today, on December 13, 2023, assessed that the request meets the preliminary acceptance criteria and decided to refer the case for consideration at a plenary session, based on documents. Based on Article 52, paragraph 3, of Law No. 8577, dated February 10, 2000, 'On the organization and functioning of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Albania,' as amended, consideration of the case at a session automatically suspends the ratification procedures in the Assembly, of the Cooperation Protocol, until the final decision of the Constitutional Court," said Ms. Zaçaj.
According to the law, the consideration of the case must be completed "within 3 months from the submission of the request," which in this case coincides with March 6 of the next year. President Zaçaj announced that "the Judges' Assembly decided that the session will be held on January 18, 2024, at 10:00."
The agreement faced strong opposition in Italy, mainly from the opposition. Meanwhile, various international organizations dealing with human rights or migrants, in particular, have raised a series of concerns.
The document is seen as an effort by the Italian government to prevent the increasing departure of migrants from Africa and to ease the pressure on its reception centers.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, for his part, has simply called it a strategic approach towards a strategic partner, such as Italy, claiming that all this noise is made, according to him, because, for the first time, such an agreement is signed with a country that is not a member of the EU.