TIRANA, July 17 /ATA/ On International Criminal Justice Day, the Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents (AIDSSH) hosted Justice in Shackles: Honoring Persecuted Defense Lawyers (1944–1966) event, dedicated to the history of persecuted lawyers and the crackdown on legal defense during the communist regime.
President of AIDSSH Gentiana Sula emphasized that the activity does not only aim to remember some individual fates, but to reconstruct the history of a profession and understand what happened to the right to defense in Albania.
She announced that Authority archives have identified around 130 lawyers who practiced during the first phase of the communist regime. Of this group, at least 30 were persecuted, imprisoned, interned, or barred from practicing law.
“Although this data is still preliminary, the takeaway is undeniable. This is not just an attack on individuals, but an assault on the profession’s independence—the very buffer that protects the citizen from the overreach of the state,” emphasized Sula.
Chairman of the Committee for Legal Affairs and Public Administration Ulsi Manja appreciated the event as a necessary act of historical memory and emphasized that the persecuted lawyers were punished not for their actions, but for defending the core idea that everyone deserves fair representation.
Authority member Skënder Vrioni delivered the keynote address, presenting a comparative analysis of the legal profession between 1945 and 1990. He emphasized how the communist regime steadily stripped lawyers of their independence, leading to the profession’s complete suppression in 1967.
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