During a conference organized by the National Ombudsman concerning violence against women, US Ambassador Donald Lu used to opportunity to attack General Prosecutor Adriatik Llalla, whom the Rama government is trying to unconstitutionally replace with a “Temporary General Prosecutor”:
The old judicial system protected wealthy statesmen through corruption and political influence. The new system cannot have a General Prosecutor that doesn’t criminally prosecute anyone.
Ambassador Lu further addressed the judicial reform and the election of the new General Prosecutor, calling for a consensus between government and opposition regarding Llalla’s successor, who, although his term has nominally ended, cannot leave his post until it is announced vacant by the High Prosecutorial Council:
Both sides [government and opposition] have to put an end to the epoch when the General Prosecutor protected corrupted politicians. In the name of the women and children who suffer as the result of a corrupt system I hope that the politicians will leave their irrelevant disagreements aside and implement this judicial reform.
Soon the first vetting cases will finish. This will bring the creation of other judicial organs, including SPAK [the special prosecutor] and the BKH [National Investigation Bureau]. The Albanians impatiently await justice. And politicians are afraid.
Some politicians have said that “the judicial reform has died.” It hasn’t died, but the possibility that important politicians control and manipulate justice has nearly died.
This country cannot enter the EU if it continues to have the lowest level of criminal prosecution of serious crimes in Europe.
Ambassador Lu’s comments come at a moment that the US Embassy has contributed significantly to “irrelevant disagreements,” by supporting a legal opinion of OPDAT and EURALIUS approving Prime Minister Edi Rama’s attempts to circumvent the Constitution and the judicial reform by electing an unvetted “Temporary General Prosecutor” with an unlimited term.
