TIRANA, May 2 /ATA/ The Chairman of the High Prosecutorial Council, Alfred Balla, hailed the decision to merge 9 courts and prosecutor’s offices of first instance in judicial districts.
He spoke about the judicial map implementation in a televised interview.
“This is the second stage of judicial map implementation. Regarding our ideas, be them my personal opinions or of the Council members, we have expressed them. There were some small prosecution offices with one or two prosecutors that were inefficient, since that way it was impossible to enable the specialization of prosecutors in investigation of different types of crimes. I see this change as a positive step,” he said.
The chairman of HPC went on saying that the new judicial map does not affect the citizens that much, as they can turn to the judicial police or the State Police if they want to report a case to prosecution office.
“The closure of one Appeal prosecution does not affect that much given that the legislation has also changed. Under the new justice reform, most of the cases on Appeal are handled in consultation chambers. Citizens there can access the justice service. The merger of all prosecution offices and courts, because they are connected to one Appeal, I think, serves the purpose for an efficient justice and a specialized court divided into sections,” he added.
Balla said that the case backlog and delays are attributed to the dismissal of a high number of judges and prosecutors as part of justice reform.
“The Appeal Prosecution office has 13 prosecutors, which is a sufficient number to handle the number of cases. The backlog has accumulated because many actors have failed the vetting. There are dozens of prosecutors and judges that have been dismissed. Yet, we have made sure not to put a strain on the School of Magistrates but to maintain quality. This is the concern for the whole Albanian society. It was not initially thought that the Justice Reform would dismiss a high number of prosecutors and judges. It has happened before, for example in the High Court, which has a backlog of over 30,000 cases. They take time, the only way to reduce the backlog goes though the School of Magistrates,” he added.
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