Lawyers for the residents of the Kombinat area of Tirana, who are fighting against the enforced demolition of their homes, have issued a statement calling the claims that the Municipality won the lawsuit against them false.
The Municipality of Tirana is currently demolishing large swathes of the Kombinat area of the city under the guise of earthquake damage. They plan to rebuild large numbers of apartments as well as shops, offices, and other commercial premises.
Despite using the earthquake as the reason for demolishing the properties, the plan for the area comes from 2018, over a year prior to the disaster.
Concerns have been raised over a lack of transparency in the project, including how apartments will be allocated to those whose homes have been demolished, how the process will be managed, and which private companies are involved.
Dorian Matlija and Irene Dule, lawyers at Res Publica, stated that contrary to claims made in some media, the Municipality has not won the lawsuit, but rather the court just dropped one security measure for a family in one of the buildings. This means that this particular family’s home can be demolished. Meanwhile, the court approved additional security measures for other families, meaning the Municipality is not allowed to demolish their homes for now.
“The Municipality of Tirana has not won [the] lawsuit, the court has not given it the right to continue the project in Kombinat…all court proceedings are ongoing and we are in the early stages of the process,” the statement reads.
They continued that the court is yet to publish any of its reasons for the decision, meaning that reports in some media on the topic, are false.
Lastly, they noted that there was no facility set up in the area to aid residents while their homes are being constructed. Instead, they are being housed in different locations away from their original area of residence.
Res Publica called on the media to publish their statement in order to make it clear that the Municipality hasn’t yet won anything.
Earlier this month, Exit journalist Alice Taylor won a series of lawsuits against some media platforms for defamation. The judge issued her decision but was yet to publish the reasoning. Despite this, one platform claimed that they had been the ones to win and even provided supposed reasoning from the still unpublished decision. Taylor was targeted in a smear campaign after critically reporting on the government and Municipality. She was represented by both Matlija and Dule.
