As expected, Prime Minister has mobilized the “opinions” of the EU and US ambassadors, supported by a flawed legal document, in his attempts to defend himself against the criticism of the opposition that his election of a Temporary General Prosecutor is anti-constitutional.
Immediately after the press conferences of PD leader Lulzim Basha and LSI leader Monika Kryemadhi, in which they reiterated their arguments against the election of a Temporary General Prosecutor and expressed their worries about the deadlock in judicial reform, Prime Minister Rama took to his favorite platform:
Is there an idiot who believes that the US/EU want a temporary prosecutor to close the investigation dossiers by violating the Constitution! Come on, politics, come on.
During the recent days following the formal end to General Prosecutor Adriatik Llalla’s 7-year mandate, Prime Minister Rama and his government have consistently failed to build a sound legal argument why a Temporary General Prosecutor would be constitutional.
The main argument provided to Rama by OPDAT and EURALIUS is the following:
The fact the PO law [no. 97/2016] foresees specific rules for the temporary acting Prosecutor General, who has a limited period of mandate and is not to be considered the Prosecutor General, but just a senior prosecutor who in the transitory period is assigned the functions of a Prosecutor General, suggest that this figure is rather comparable with the figure of a deputy Prosecutor General, which is not regulated in the Constitution.
There are several issues with this line of reasoning and its implementation in practice. First of all, art. 109 of Law no. 97/2016 does not specify the length of the Temporary General Prosecutor’s mandate, which, now that the judicial reform is a deadlock, is practically unlimited.
Second, someone who assumes all the tasks and powers of a Prosecutor General should be considered as such, and thus the Constitution is applicable.
Third, Law no. 97/2016 mentions indeed “specific rules,” namely that the prosecutor “with the most experience” be elected Temporary Prosecutor General. The behavior of Parliament, which has “assumed” the prerogative of the High Prosecutorial Council, however, shows that they are not electing simply the “most experienced” prosecutor to “temporarily,” and for a “transitory period” takes over Llalla’s tasks; it rather shows they are planning to elect someone for a long, long time.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador Donald Lu has chosen an appeal to pathos to make his point:
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.
