TIRANA, September 30 /ATA/ – Prime Minister Edi Rama declared today that Albania has dismantled its century-old culture of impunity, a decade after passing landmark justice reforms. Speaking at the unveiling of the new Criminal Procedure Code guarantees, Rama noted that “exactly 10 years ago, in 2016, Parliament turned the boldest aspiration of our Renaissance program into reality.”
“Through constitutional amendments and new legislation, we have liberated the justice system from political influence, ending a chronic dependency that had persisted since the founding of the Albanian state in 1912,” the prime minister stated.
Rama stated that the justice reform replaced the old judicial framework with a completely new architecture, introducing self-governing institutions, a dedicated anti-corruption superstructure, top-tier salaries, and a landmark vetting process.
Reflecting on the decade-long journey, Rama acknowledged both sides of the reform: “We have witnessed the strength of the reform, but also the weaknesses that emerged from confronting reality. We have seen results that once seemed unimaginable; yet, we have also seen failures and distortions that cannot be masked by those achievements.”
Despite the setbacks and challenges, the prime minister maintained that the monumental shift driven by the justice reform was ultimately worth the burden. “To summarize its merits in a single sentence: This reform has been as brutal as it has been beneficial,” Rama stated. “A decade ago, we surrendered the sword of justice to the judiciary—a weapon that, for an entire century, had been wielded exclusively by political power.”
Today, the prime minister added, we want to take a smaller step that still matters a great deal.
Prime Minister Rama announced the introduction of the ‘package of procedural guarantees,’ a new legislative reform aimed at balancing the scales of justice. The initiative seeks to ensure that judicial application never supersedes the core principle of justice itself, establishing true equality before the law for all citizens.
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