Parliament approves population registration law

28/06/2011 12:20

The Parliament passed with 71 votes in favor the draft-decision for
population registration. The draft-decision opens way to the
approval of this law in an accelerated procedure.

The law was proposed by the Minister of Technology, Innovation and Communication, Genc Pollo, the same who proposed the government decision for changing the way identity cards would be called in the Albanian language, with Albanian terms. But this time, the government proposed the non-Albanian word “census”, which, as the relation says, will give the registration process a more unified identity.

But terminology is not the only change. With the new changes, this part of the law is removed and no data of the population registration will be reflected on Civil Registrar Office books, and it will not be used for election lists. The data will be used in full accordance with the law for statistics only by the Institution of Statistics. This institute will be charged to keep the data of every individual in full accordance with the new law for protecting personal data.

The changes that were proposed by the government do not fulfill the requests of the Red and Black Alliance, which initiated a petition for stopping the population registration on ethnic and religious bases. Activists of this alliance protested in front the Parliament, giving as arguments the risks that our country faces after such a registration.

But the government seems determined to make this registration on October 1st of this year, for which they say that is a European obligation. The only guaranty that is expected to bring changes to this law is a 100,000 ALL fine for anyone that gives fake or untrue information. The Red and Black alliance warned a second phase of their request, this time for changing the Constitution and facilitate the way Albanian passports are received by any Albanian citizen. This initiative aims of approach Kosovo Albanians who can receive an Albanian passport after staying in Albania for three or five years.

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