Institutions as accessory to a crime

Institutions as accessory to a crime
By PlatorNesturi

The voting that took place in parliament as to the extent that the Prosecution of Serious Crimes could operate with the investigation on former minister Tahiri, has now prompted another battle. More than the values of the investigation, the political class has turned this into a real cause of the political battle. Now, in every media screen we see representatives of the majority and opposition which continue to debate, by interpreting laws, by referring to the past and by giving lessons on morale where the opponent is the only one to blame. The battle continues and strangely enough,  this is not a big cauldron where the filthy clothes of the political class of these 27 years boil. What we don’t know is if the investigation will be serious or whether this case too will be dragged on until this governing term ends.

With its political comments, the prosecution damaged its case and the investigation, by showing that it is part of this rotten system which it pretends that it’s investigating. And the prosecution is not the only one doing this. A statement made by the High State Audit, revealed frightening figures showing that this public administration has abused with hundreds of millions of Euros in the past two years. Strangely enough, this news didn’t receive lots of media attention. Even the opposition didn’t refer a lot to these figures in the weekly debates in parliament. In any other country, this would cause a big debate as to how taxpayers’ money is spent by those who have been elected to manage this money. But, as it seems, this is a familiar reality for the media, the citizens and the opposition (because this is how the opposition has acted when it used to be in power) and it no longer makes the headlines. It is almost considered as something normal. Nonetheless, it seems that the High State Audit has done its part after revealing these abusive figures. This is the conclusion, but the responsible people and who will pay for this enormous amount of money that has ended up in the pockets of someone else, are yet to be discovered.

Let us continue with the Agency for the Declaration of Assets and the Financial Intelligence Unit. A while ago it was declared that 40 million euros worth of assets generated from the proceeds of crime and money laundering were seized. And these assets belonged to criminals where many of them had not been investigated or tried in Albania, but other EU countries. For many of them, foreign authorities had sent requests for extradition or to verify the assets that they had acquired through proceeds of crime.

In the meantime, nothing is being done about the assets of politicians, MPs and state officials, which must be examined each year through the self-assessment forms. While the media has revealed that many prosecutors and judges cannot justify the enormous amounts of money that they have in the bank or the houses and properties that they own, during all these years, we have not heard anything of this nature on politicians or senior officials. Have these institutions which must be guardians of the integrity of the MP or other officials, functioned? So far, it seems that each one of them is clean, in contrast to the general perception of the people that corruption in high ranks is alarming.

Under these conditions, the picture is quite gloomy and we cannot yet imagine how an abuse, a corruption case or an illicit traffic where officials and police officers are involved, could be investigated. All institutions that are responsible for this are either anemic or uninterested to do their job. And it’s not that these institutions are unable to do their job. It’s hard to believe that a corruption case referred by an institutions is not rock solid. It’s also hard to believe that the prosecutor’s case has flaws due to his incompetence. Often, if you play the incompetent, you intentionally ruin a case which you’re supposed to defend. And with this, you become accessory to a crime.

Therefore, politicians simply argue and engage in debates in front of TV cameras. They know that institutions are unable to fight evil. If institutions did their job, the law would prevail and not demagogy.

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