How temporary will be the interim General Prosecutor

How temporary will be the interim General Prosecutor
This article has been written for Albanian Free Press newspaper and www.afp.al

By Plator Nesturi

Many debates are taking place on the issue of the election of the general prosecutor who will replace Llalla. These debates are taking place in Parliament, on the media and in conferences with the international community, where foreign diplomats are providing directives as to what should be done and how the general prosecutor should be replaced. The debate is taking place by referring to the old or new law, the Venice Commission or the Kanun of Lek Dukagjini. In all cases, they are referring to him as interim General Prosecutor. Why all this hubbub? Or will this be temporary as well?

If we consider the new head of the prosecution as temporary from the very outset, it means that he will be temporary in terms of time. However, the powers that he will hold remain the same. There will be the same centralized structure which has existed so far in the Attorney General’s office. So, although Parliament decided a year ago that Prosecution would go a total transformation, which should have been done up until now, the situation will not change even after Adriatik Llalla’s departure. We will simply have the head of an institution which will function based on an old law. The structure will be the same and the powers will be the same. But, he will be in office for a temporary period.

Based on this logic, in whatever manner this general prosecutor does his job, it doesn’t really matter because he will be an interim one. In a way, the general prosecutor will be like an imam, because he will have his powers, but not the necessary time to grow the beard of responsibility.

All of this desire to hold debates and to make something temporary something legal and constitutional is not logical. But, it depends how long this temporary state will last. It may even last endlessly. There have also been previous cases in Albania when heads of institutions who have been appointed as interim, have remained longer in their office than those who have been elected in this post. Our elections and our electoral code is something temporary, which should have been replaced a long time ago, but it is still in power. In the past two elections, the majority has pledged that it would change the electoral code. Parliamentary committees are appointed on this issue, but no results are yielded. The law remains temporary, but elections are held with it. It is not even known how many other elections will be organized with it.

In the recent days, we’ve heard candidates for the post of the general prosecutor report in front of the parliamentary law committee. They are seven and this is no small number even when it comes to an interim prosecutor. What counts is the fact that we will soon have a new head of the institution. With the old law and the old powers, nevertheless, he will be appointed. What we don’t know is what will happen with the other part of the reform in justice and other institutions. Perhaps, they will remain temporary, although more than a year ago, 140 MPs voted the drastic amendments of the Constitution to have a new structure of the judicial domain. It seems that the voting has been done against their will, therefore we can postpone the temporary nature of our institutions indefinitely.

Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy

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