TIRANA, Feb 26 /ATA/-By Maela Marini/ Prime Minister Edi Rama, also the chairman of the Socialist Party, expressed today his conviction that the time will come for the so-called moral resignations, but only after this revolutionary phase of judicial independence has passed.
During the meeting of the Socialist Party’s parliamentary group, Prime Minister Rama remarked that Albania has a bleak European record as a country where a judge may authorize a prosecutor to suspend a minister from office, or where an Appeals Court judge may assume the authority to double the sentence of individuals who seek a retrial.
Prime Minister Rama stated that he is well acquainted with both the theory and practice of moral resignation in Europe, which, according to him, ‘is neither applied universally nor consistently.
He went on to remark: ‘In Albania today, when the judiciary has begun to provide an undeniable service to the country, yet at the same time inflicts considerable collateral damage upon the administration by routinely defying the sacred democratic principle of the presumption of innocence, the mechanism of governance cannot be wound up and set up anew each time the prosecution brings a charge.
He argued that while in Germany ministers accused of wrongdoing resign automatically, this is not the case in Italy or France. He pointed out that in France even the Justice Minister remained in office during a serious accusation and was later acquitted. Rama emphasized that comparisons should not overlook Germany’s status as a model rule-of-law state, where the presumption of innocence is paramount.
Rama emphasized that in Germany, materials unlawfully extracted from investigative files are deemed inadmissible by the courts, as they are considered to compromise the balance of justice by serving as media fodder intended to influence the outcome of judicial proceedings.
Rama noted that in Germany and in the consolidated democracies of Europe, the prosecution does not operate as a mere transport service, collecting documents from the archives of ministries and agencies and delivering them to prosecution offices. In Germany, the boundaries between administrative matters and criminal liability are clearly delineated,” he added.
He went on saying that Albania, in his view, is entering a new historical phase in which an independent judiciary must mature, even if that process entails challenges to individual freedoms and rights, or extends to the detriment of public administration and private enterprise.
/a.f/sm/
