During a conference on security today in Tirana, Prime Minister Edi Rama declared that “the excellent experience of the functioning of several task forces, such as the one for cannabis and the protection for the territory is the right example” for the new special task force baptized “The Force of Law.”
Talking about “the newest police,” created to combat organized crime, it appeared as if the Prime Minister who never acknowledged the cannabization of the country still is ready to “continue the war” against drug traffickers and organized crime:
The continuation of the attacks on criminal groups continues to be a priority of the police. The most important is the targeting of assets with criminal origin, by removing the possibility of this networks and elements to return and giving a very clear message that who profits from crime won’t enjoy from what he won profited.
In fact, the special task force is much more extensive than the anti-cannabis task force, which the Prime Minister took as an example. As Exit has explained before, the organization structure of the task force and its aim largely matches early plans of Rama’s government for a National Investigation Bureau that was declared unconstitutional. If indeed this task force is implemented in that form (the Council of Ministers still has not published any Decision regarding it), any criminal investigated by the task force will most probably avoid any prison time, because of its unconstitutional nature.
Continuing with his initiatives of questionable legality, the Prime Minister also reiterated his plans to “vet” the State Police:
The process of cleaning up the State Police and judicial system from the incapable will continue. In the first place, with the State Police and then with other law enforcement agencies. The vetting will be started to be implemented from January and will give inherent results.
The Prime Minister here appears to conflate the judicial reform, which includes a reassessment process (“vetting”) enshrined in the Constitution and monitored by the international community, and his own attempt to “clean up” the State Police, beyond any established legal framework, and through mechanisms that have not yet been made public.
Moreover, these types of statements risk conflating both the judicial reform and the police clean-up, thus inherently politicizing the former.
