President Meta responded through a letter to the invitation to appear before the Committee, saying “the Committee’s request, in its content, does not refer to any constitutional and legal provisions.”

President Meta wrote in his letter that the process to oust him was “illegitimate, fictitious and beyond the deadlines and procedures, and not only openly violates all constitutional democratic principles of the rule of law, but in the way it is initiated, evaluated, approved and is being implemented, clearly shows that it is seeking to create the idea that the Assembly is exercising its functions, while no process of this kind can take place during this transitional period of the current Parliament’s mandate.”

President Meta said that “an Inquiry Committee cannot be established during the last four months of a parliament’s mandate as it can be misused.”

Meta claimed that “through this initiative, the Assembly is seeking to delegitimize the competences or limit his role as representative of the People’s Unity and Constitutions guarantor.”

“This way the one-party Parliament is also attempting to influence the justice bodies so that they don’t look into the election crimes,” Meta said in his letter.

He urged Parliament to immediately terminate any parliamentary inquiry procedure that are being carried out by the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee.

Albanian parliament approved earlier this month the establishment of an inquiry committee for impeachment of the country’s President Ilir Meta, accused of violating the constitution by taking political sides before and during the April 25 general election.

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