A few days ago, Arta Marku said the following during the hearing session of the Legal Affairs Commission:
I fulfill all the conditions and criteria to be elected on this post, believing in transparency. I see the Prosecution in chaos and I have the ability to return it to normality. The prosecutors are confused, demotivated, because the nominations have no relations to merits. I will make the laws to be implemented correctly.
Today Marku was elected with 69 Socialist votes in favor, 2 abstentions, and 2 against.
Marku, who had claimed a few days ago to believe in “transparency,” was hastily sworn in by Speaker of Parliament Gramoz Ruçi among smoke and physical altercations between deputies of opposition and majority.
Also Marku’s claim that she’ll “correctly” implement the laws of Albania is ironic, as the entire procedure in which she was elected as Temporary General Prosecutor was unconstitutional and at odds with the values underlying the judicial reform.
Marku will have an indefinite term in office, as none has been specified in the law on which the government relied to usher her nomination through.
Who is Arta Marku?
Marku started her career in Shkodra in 2002, in the period that Ulsi Manja, current PS deputy was chief prosecutor of the city.
Heading the Legal Affairs Commission, Manja was also the deputy proposing Marku as Temporary Prosecutor General.
Although Marku has worked for 16 years as a prosecutor in Shkodra, the dossiers she investigated and prosecuted are far and few in between.
As Marku was not vetted before being nominated – again in violation of the Constitution – she was able to claim that had never been reprimanded for violations during her career.
But in fact, a lawsuit was filed against Marku in 2008 by former Minister of Justice Enkelejd Alibeaj for not executing a criminal verdict in a case. Even though both Arta Marku and her colleague Barhim Dragoshi were accused by the Ministry of Justice, then General Prosecutor Ina Rama refused to take any disciplinary measures.
