Minister Veliaj reviews draft-law for opening Communist Secret Files

04/03/2015 00:00

“It is not decent that a party, today in opposition, for 25 years has
used the cause of the former political prisoners and the opening of the
communist files, has always tried to avoid it”, declared the Minister of
Social Welfare, Erjon Veliaj.

After the opposition members left, the Commission of laws continued the meeting with the Minister of Social Welfare, Erion Veliaj, presenting a draft for opening the communist Secret Service files. Erion Veliaj explained that this draft law is based on transparency.

“This is an exclusive law of transparency. If there is a typical lustration element, it is only in the selection of the Commissioners. Five Commissioners who should have no connection with the past or with the former Secret Service. They should be the apolitical guarantees of this process and of this new Authority. But the Constitution of Albania doesn’t stop anyone from being elected, from electing, from working, change his job and things like that. We are talking about a transparency law and not a law for collective punishments, which would suggest an immediate rejection of this law”, Veliaj declared.

Before the Commission, MP Mesila Doda, who supports the draft-law for opening the files by realizing the lustration, said that they cannot supoprt this government draft. Together with the civil society they will undertake the initiative for opening a referendum.

“Those who draft the law cannot be simply the toys of former Youth Secretaries, former Prosecutors or Bureau members. We need people who must confront the variant brought to Parliament, and the MPs that were students of December 1990 will not be part of a farce process”

“We are talking about a law that deals only with the collaborators of the Secret Service. We have this law, but we need to add the part of the lustration. Lustration is about the people who have made the Albanian politics during the dictatorship”, declared Elsa Ballauri.

“We are talking about merging a legal process that respects the Constitution with an amateur one which is against the Constitution. Eastern countries, even in Balkan who are those EU members, have used such laws only for political revenge. We have nothing to do with such an experience”, Veliaj declared.

Minister Veliaj said that if the Albanian government would propose a draft-law with anti-constitutional elements, he would never be executed.

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