TIRANA, June 13/ATA/ Constitutional Court President Holta Zaçaj reacted today to Prime Minister Edi Rama’s statements regarding the request of the Union of Judges for a salary increase, for the second time in three years.
Rama stated that, “We accepted the first bitter joke of the Constitutional Court for the sake of respect for a judicial decision – but, it should not be repeated.”
Today, Zaçaj said to reporters that they do not feel under pressure, as they are used to such statements coming from all sides and that the media gives more attention than necessary to some topics or voices about their decisions.
“We stick to what we issued in the press release. We appreciate that any of our decisions can in fact be the subject of criticism. And I have encouraged the fact because freedom of expression implies exactly this. But, not pressure, but criticism is the limit”, said Zaçaj.
Regarding the government’s failure to implement certain Constitutional decisions, Zaçaj underlined that politics takes its costs on its actions.
“I do not believe that we are at this point of non-implementation. The implementation of the decisions of the Constitutional Court actually shows the stage of democracy. Of course, we still have work to do, but the majority of our decisions can be implemented. There are certain decisions on which politics takes its own cost if it does not implement them, when we talk about other powers. The important thing is that the Court functions. We came out with a statement because our duty is to guarantee the public that the Court functions independently, impartially. Of course, we appreciate the opinions that come from all sides, including the media, but essentially it is important that the public is well-informed, receives the right information. And for our part, we assure the public that we are independent and impartial in doing our job, regardless of who the interests are, how the parties involved in the process think”, said Zaçaj. /m.q/ /a.g/p.s./
