TI: “Justice, the most corrupted institution”

08/09/2016 00:00

Five institutions and sectors reviewed by Transparency International are
still leaving the path open to corruption. The Prosecution and the
Judiciary have still a weak performance. The report says that the
institutions responsible for the investigation, prosecution and trial of
corruption are under strong political pressure to act. This pressure
starts with the legal structure.

“Institutions such as the High Council of Justice, Courts and others, are being addressed through the justice reform. Others, such as the High Inspectorate of Declaration and Audit of Assets, or the Commissioner for Civilian Service, don’t have a guaranteed independence. The majority is appointed by simple majority in Parliament. This allows politicians to appoint their supervisors”, says Adela Halo.

The only exclusion was made for the Ombudsman. However, it underlines that without a clear law structure about the conflict of interest, Albania has no case of a high-rank official being punished for corruption.

“Courts have acted only for cases about slander, and only when the case was started by nother politician”, Halo said.

The coordinator for Southeastern Europe and Balkan, Cornelia Abel, gives her main recommendations.

“The Justice Reform needs to be implemented. An ad-hoc commission must be established for reviewing the conflict of interest law, because it is unimplementable for the moment. There are many cases of impunity with cases of conflict of interest. Albania is on the path of EU integration. This must be done, because Albania is part of Europe. But they must make sure that the elected work for the citizens and not for themselves. This is the key issue and the system must make sure that this will happen”, says Cornelia Abel.

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