Halimi made the comments through a post on his Facebook page, where he said that this report confirms the dramatic weakness of the rule of law in Albania.
He added that the report mentioned that the demolition of the resort was done to silence criticism of the government and suppress independent media.
Halim’s full response:
DASH’s report on Tritol demolitions, confiscations by government decisions and media freedom in Albania, confirms the dramatic weakness of the rule of law in Albania!
Beyond any doubt, the DASH Report confirmed from across the continent that what happened in Albania at the end of last year was dramatic. Nowhere in any country of the region can you find such events of the functioning of the state based on governmental actions “campaigns and actions” with chains of fadroms, demolition of business buildings or citizens with tritoli. In the eyes of ordinary citizens, it is at least dramatic, in the eyes of us law professionals, it is a flagrant violation of the law and not proportional to any administrative violation that the citizen or legal entity is suspected of committing.
The case of the Prestige Resort with tritol mentioned specifically in the DASH 2023 Report and the conclusions of the most important Department in the world, are shocking, as they highlight some truths written in English, beyond propaganda, or small interests here in Our little republic of mud everywhere that we can’t wait to see in the face of the neighbor, rival, or enemy, propagating that the rule of law works. (rule of law)
But DASH says that the destruction with tritol was done to silence the government’s criticisms and objections from the media regarding that resort and that the government defends itself with tritol campaigns; That the judicial system was unable to examine a case before the government lit the fuse of the tritol, that the government did not wait for the court to express itself but intervened with the tritol. These findings are clearly simple to understand.
Indeed, we had seen such scenes with ministers, directors counting the holes of tritol and its kg placed in each column, citizens scared in front of the screens, in the first years of the socialist government after 2013. The fate of the aggressors who put tritol and the victims who collapsed with tritol now after 8-9 years it is known.
In the end, taxpayers are paying for the illegality, after the processes up to Strasbourg, because no legal state functions based on tritol.
Because the state does not work with tritol! Bands yes! They work like tritol and extrajudicial executions! See the crime areas in central Albania and in the north, the news of the chronicle from morning to evening!
But not the state! The government does not! They can’t work like that. The rule of law cannot function based on the tritol scenario. Because a Republic must function under the rule of law.
The legal state functions based on the principle of proportionality, between the violation and the sanction, punishment. If Prestige Resort had not paid the impact tax, the proportional penalty is never tritoli, but the administrative sanction (punishment). If a company has made a construction without a permit, it must go to the prosecutor’s office and answer, and it is the court that must decide what amount of punishment should be given for it, and certainly not the government, and I am convinced that neither Tritoli gives as punishment the court, in none of its decisions in these 30 years of democracy.
That the court does not do it for the gangs or the assets of the gangs established by drugs, blood, traffic crime, it never imposes tritol, no court does this!
Even if we thought that the government had the intention of the tritol or the confiscation of the rest, it would never be proportional to the violation since this punishment, execution by tritol, cannot be done by the government, whoever it is, cannot be done by the minister /minister whoever he/she is.
Only the justice system can do it, it can only do it through a legal process, by an independent and impartial court, in a reasonable time, according to Article 6 of the ECHR, but never the government, whoever it is, yesterday today or tomorrow.
The government can’t execute property without trial, not even for business, no matter how much it hates it, just like it can’t do it for gangs, no matter how much you can fight with them! There are the gangs and their assets that are suspected to be the proceeds of drug trafficking and organized crime. For them, the government cannot place the tritol, it cannot execute their properties without a trial, but it is obliged to transfer them in a legal process from one court to another up to the highest level.
The government, whoever it is, cannot confiscate by itself with the signature of the prime minister, the minister, whoever he/she is, the properties of the gangs on the side of Albania suspected of having been involved in criminal activity, the most serious violation of the laws in Albania, but for those properties SPAK, GJKKO and the Supreme Court decide in advance. And only after the end of the judicial process in GJL, then it is available on them.
And then where does the government find the right to foreclose without trial the properties alleged to have committed administrative violations for administrative violations, not criminal, not drugs, not human trafficking? Where does the government, whoever it is, find the right to execute with tritol, assets which according to its claims have problems with taxes? Why are organized crime and drug assets guaranteed judicial process and business assets are not, putting pressure on the courts not to consider, not to take security measures, or not to speak at all as the latest DASH Report cites?
DASH’s report on Albania showed that our judicial system in Albania is weak and cannot establish the rule of law when faced with the government, and this strong criticism should be well heard by the Constitutional Court when it examines the VKM for government confiscations, or executions without trial of the assets of citizens and businesses, guaranteeing them the minimum rights that are also guaranteed to the heads of criminal organizations: a regular legal process.
