The High Judicial Council (KLGj) has decided to make limited use of the temporary promotion scheme suggested by EURALIUS senior legal expert and Constitutional Court candidate Klodian Rado in order to treat the most urgent cases at the High Court.
In his legal opinion, Rado had proposed to use the full force of the promotion scheme to fill up the High Court with “temporary” judges who then would elect new members of the Constitutional Court. This would have led to unvetted judges influencing the composition of the highest court in Albania, and violate the principles on which the justice reform was founded.
The KLGj has now chosen only to use the delegation scheme in five pending extradition cases, whose deadlines are in August. In all five cases, the extradition has been requested by Italy, involving drugs trafficking and prostitution cases.
In a press release, the KLGj stated:
The High Court is currently completely dysfunctional as long as not even a team of judges, which would treat at least issues with an urgent and sensitive character from the perspective of international relations, is functional. […] This is an extraordinary measure, which respects the principles of proportionality, […] respects the criterion of suitability […], of necessity […], and the criterion of proportionality in the narrow sense.
This solution proposed by EURALIUS has been opposed by President Ilir Meta, who asserted that only the President has the competency of nominating judges to the High Court. Furthermore, the KLGj has violated the legal deadline of passing the necessary bylaws dealing with the promotion of judges to the High Court.
