The Venice Commission passed this Friday the final draft of the justice
reform, by bringing an end to the long saga of recommendations, leaving
everything up to the politicians of Albania. The news was confirmed
initially by the EU delegation in Albania through social networks.
“The Venice Commission approved the final opinion for the justice reform. It thanked the EU delegation for its support and cooperation. It is now a responsibility of the Parliament to finalize the historic justice reform that is requested by the Albanian citizens”, says the announcement of the EU delegation in Tirana.
The final Venice Report is the official version of the draft that was made public early this mnth. Top Channel secured the 20-page document in which Venice experts listed the final conclusions.
To the strong political debates about the future fate of the General Prosecutor, Adriatik Llalla, the Venice Commission gives this verdict:
“If the PG passes the vetting process and comes clean, the question is what reason is there to remove him from office before his mandate expires. The Venice Commission sees no reason for a premature ending of the mandate”, says paragraph 81 of page 18 of the opinion.
As for the election of the three Constitutional Members, who are elected by the Parliament, Venice Recommends:
“Taking in consideration the creation of vacancies at the Constitutional Court, the Commission recommends the creation of a rule with qualified majority for three members of the Constitutional Court that will be elected by the Parliament”, says paragraph 39, page 9.
Venice recommends more attention on the way how new justice institutions are created.
“If the political forces involved in this process do not agree about the qualified majority, the members of the three new institutions must aim for a new option, which guarantees the opposition representation in all these institutions, or a new model which will guarantee the opposition a specific influence in the election process”, the Opinion suggests.
The Venice experts say more attention should be paid with the vetting process for judges and Prosecutors:
“One general critical remark, however, remains: under the revised Draft Amendments the mandate of the members of the Independent Qualification Commissions (IQC) and judges of the Specialised Qualification Chamber (SQC) responsible for the vetting process will be 9 years without the right of re-appointment (Article 179/b p.3), while the whole vetting process is supposed to last 11 years or less if Albania joins the EU on an earlier date (Article 179/b p. 4). This duration is too long. In the Interim Opinion, the Venice Commission recognized the need for the vetting under condition that “it is an extraordinary and a strictly temporary measure” (§ 100). The vetting structures should not replace ordinary constitutional bodies, such as the HJC or HPC; they may co-exist with them for some time, but should not turn into parallel quasi-permanent mechanisms.”, says paragraph 55 of page 12.
The opposition insists for a qualified majority with 2/3rd of the Parliamentary Votes for the new justice institutions, while Venice thinks that:
“The desire of the opposition for a 2/3rds majority is understandable as this may compel the incumbent ruling majority to compromise. However, the Venice Commission stresses that § 55 of its Interim Opinion did not recommend a 2/3rds majority. Both qualified majorities are legitimate, and the current method of election proposed by the revised Draft Amendments (by 3/5ths of votes) is, in principle, an acceptable solution. Actually, even the requirement of 2/3rds majority vote, on which the opposition insists, may be inefficient to attain this goal, as shown by the example of Hungary, given in § 55. Moreover, the 2/3rds requirement without effective deadlock breaking mechanisms in place may result in a stalemate and jeopardize the entire process of the reform. The Venice Commission stresses that it is not its task to propose a specific constitutional rule for electing lay members of the HJC. In the Interim Opinion, the Commission only emphasized the need to secure a pluralistic composition of the HJC, including through implementing legislation, in order to ensure that the HJC represents a large spectrum of opinions and tendencies existing in the society. The Venice Commission reiterates that the lay members of the HJC should not be the choice of the parliamentary majority only, and hence a qualified majority may be one possible solution to elect candidates who enjoy cross-party support”, says paragraph 14 of page 5 of the opinion.
Venice says the Albanian authorities should be careful and not return the constitutional amends into a precedent of endless surveillance by Secret Service for the justice system.
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