Albania's Political Leaders Fail to Agree on Judicial Reform

Prime Minister Edi Rama and Lulzim Basha, leader of the opposition Democratic Party [PD], failed to find an agreement for judicial reform after three hours of negotiations on Monday evening.

Despite eighteen months of talks and intense international pressure to find consensus, the leaders still couldn't agree on the appointment of justice council members and the structure of new judicial institutions.

Rama was accompanied by Fatmir Xhafaj, head of the parliamentary 'ad hoc' commission for judicial reform and Petrit Vasili, the vice chairman of the Socialist Movement for Integration, LSI, the junior party in the ruling coalition. Basha was joined by two MPs of his party, Edi Paloka and Oerd Bylykbashi.

To pass the reforms 93 out of 140 MPs vote are required, numbers that ruling majority country doesn't have. Even after long hours of discussion, the group couldn't cobble together the 93 votes needed to pass the reforms through Parliament.

Prime Minister Rama told the media after the long meeting that he was sorry that the Democratic Party was not convinced to vote on the prepared draft of the reform, although the majority is going to pass it in Parliament soon.

"PD has used any mean and excuse to drag out the reform and make it fail and change its essence. But now on they cannot tell to Albanians, Brussels, and Washington a single reason why they didn't accept the judicial reform," Rama said.

Opposition leader Lulzim Basha told the media that his team asked for fair rules guaranteeing the new judicial system's independence from the ruling majority.

"They [the majority] aborted the consensus. Any unilateral act of taking to Parliament a draft that is not agreed with the opposition is going to fail," he emphasized.

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