Why is there so much fear from the Prosecution’s recent moves?

By Plator Nesturi

The recent moves in different levels of the Prosecution seem to have attracted the attention of the media and the political class, which have commented on them. The election of the Interim Prosecutor General, Marku, has invited everyone to closely follow the first decisions and nominations that she made in this institution. This is also due to the fact that the appointment of the new head of the prosecution turned into a battle filled with political tension and the new chief prosecutor only obtained the votes of the majority. Although in the past few weeks there have been accusations and fear that the new head of prosecution could be used by the majority not to investigate important cases or to investigate cases which could affect political opponents, it is still early to judge, let alone, draw conclusions based on the recent moves being made in different levels of the Prosecution.

Although the new head of the prosecution has been appointed at this post as a temporary, this cannot prevent the normal functioning of this institution, which is still centralized and all the cases must be signed off by the head of the institution before reaching the court.

In this aspect, the transfers that are being made are work related. From what we have seen, the recent changes concern either the General Prosecution, where a part of those who were transferred were part of the cabinet of former chief prosecutor Llalla, or district attorneys. As far as the part of the cabinet is concerned, it’s more than normal that every chief prosecutor elects his close staff, which will assist him in his priorities and vision. As far as district attorneys are concerned, the moves were driven by another motive. Even in this case, district attorneys who have been transferred, were appointed in these posts by the former chief prosecutor. These changes were expected since the new chief prosecutor took office, as they could be easily replaced. In this case, Marku has not broken the law and she cannot be accused of this. Those who were appointed in district prosecutions had obtained the trust of the former chief prosecutor to lead these structures temporarily, as the proposal to appoint them as permanent heads of these district prosecutions had not been sent to the Supreme Council of Justice.

The fact that the new prosecutor general is temporary, is being used as an argument that she should do nothing but air her office until a new head is elected based on the new Constitution. Every move that has been made is being associated with some sort of panic, but nobody is interested to know the opinion ofthe body of prosecutors for the appointments that were made, especially for those who were temporarily appointed. Had they approved the appointments that Llalla had made and were they made based on meritocracy? This argument has not yet been commented in the media, because we still have not heard anything against these moves by prosecutors, besides those prosecutors who were affected by the actual moves. Meanwhile, a while ago, there were also cases of direct conflicts between different prosecutors and former head of the prosecution for being transferred or discharged. In the meantime, we should wait. We should wait for the prosecution to start working on individual cases, which will be numerous in the months to come. The work of the chief prosecutor will be judged based upon the way the cases are investigated and the results that will be yielded from these investigations. Meanwhile, for so many years, the prosecution has not prosecuted any of the “big fishes” and we just need to wait and see if this will change or not. This year, we’re expecting to see many big cases which could affect politics or senior officials. But, we should not ignore another expectations which concerns the vetting process. This process will screen prosecutors and we may say many strange things regarding the way they have become super rich.

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