Albania Let Rights Standards Slip While Chairing OSCE – NGOs

Limited progress on electoral reform, few investigations into corruption and regular attacks against freedom of speech tarnished Albania's year as chair the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, six rights organisations stated in a report published on Monday.

The Albanian Helsinki Committee, AHC, Civil Rights Defenders, CRD, the Institute for Political Studies, IPS, BIRN Albania, the Center for Legal Civic Initiatives, CLCI, and the Tirana Legal Aid Society, TLAS, evaluated human rights and the rule of law during Albania's chairmanship in office of the OSCE.

Justice reform, the much heralded revamp of the notoriously slow and corrupt justice system, is still incomplete, the report stated, while the backlog of cases piling up in courts has increased.

The vetting process, an extraordinary check on the wealth, professional credentials and moral standing of the judges and prosecutors, resulted in about half of them being fired while more chose to resign to avoid the process. While the process is considered a step towards ending impunity, fewer judges and prosecutors means higher workloads and longer waiting times for justice.

"The system faces lack of human resources, higher workload and an increase of backlog cases," Erida Skendaj, from the Albanian Helsinki Committee, said.

Skendaj also noted that the new justice institutions created by the reform process "need to improve their level of transparency", a view shared by BIRN Albania editor Besar Likmeta.

He said the High Council of Judges has pushed the principle of the protection of personal data to a level of absurdity, keeping secret the names of appointed judges and the courts where they have been appointed, and the names of judges undergoing...