The Socialist majority established the parliamentary committee of inquiry to dismiss President Ilir Meta in a record time, initiating the process even before the results of the April 25 elections were certified.
In just 8 days, the Parliament swiftly completed a number of steps of the process to dismiss the president:
• A request for his dismissal was drafted, detailing allegations against the president;
• Signatures of 49 Socialist MPs were gathered in support of the request and submitted to parliament;
• A meeting of the Speaker of Parliament and heads of parliamentary groups was conveyed. It reviewed the request and approved it to enter parliamentary procedures for dismissal;
• The Legal Affairs Committee reviewed the request, drafted a report on it proposing the establishment of a committee for inquiry, and approved the report;
• The Parliament reviewed the report and voted in favor of establishing the committee for inquiry;
•The committee held its first meeting.
While no law was violated, the spirit of the laws was: the process for the dismissal of the president must be transparent, cautious, and give all sides an opportunity to fulfill their role in it.
These actions are there to guarantee the legitimacy of the initiative and process.
The hustle had one single aim: to dismiss the president during this session of parliament.
His dismissal requires 94 votes, i.e. two-thirds of the votes in the 140-seat parliament. The Socialists have 74 votes now, but they hope to get the current opposition MPs’ support, who broke away from the opposition parties’ decision to resign their seats more than two years ago.
Once the new session starts in September, Prime Minister Edi Rama’s majority won’t be able to hope to get these votes as they opposition will be back in parliament.
Hence, the Socialists want to finalize the process in the next two months.
Another factor for the hustle was the legal requirement banning the establishment of committees of inquiry later than 4 months before the end of the 4-year-term of the parliament. Such a committee could have only been established before May 9, hence the haste.
The committee for inquiry is also set to establish another record in the history of Albania’s parliament. Its members have only 3 weeks to inquire into the allegations against the president and decide whether to propose his dismissal to parliament or not.
Previous committees during the last 30 years have had a minimum of 3 months for the inquiry into matters they were established for. This includes the parliamentary committee inquiring into the process through which former foreign deputy minister Gent Cakaj were provided with a security clearance certificate.
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