Erion Veliaj's "Screams" at the Constitutional Court

2025-10-31 12:10:00, Aktualitet CNA

Erion Veliaj defends himself in the Constitutional Court by victimizing himself, lying, starting from scenarios of how he was kidnapped from office to his dismissal:

Erion Veliaj's statement:

Honorable President of the Constitutional Court,

Honorable members of the Constitutional Court,

Although I know full well that this is my constitutional right, I want to thank you with respect for giving me the opportunity to be present today, to exercise my right, to be heard before you and before all Albanians.

My battle to be heard by you comes after a long, frustrating saga of hearing what I have done, being kidnapped from the office where I was elected by the citizens, and locked in a cell with a prison regime more severe than that of serial killers.

I have experienced a long period, filled with violations of my fundamental rights as a citizen of this Republic, but above all, a period of denigration and attempts to silence the voice of an elected official, three times in a row, by the citizens of Tirana.

But this is not simply an attempt to denigrate me, it is contempt for the vote itself, for the most sacred thing that democracy has. And contempt for it is contempt for the power that citizens have; it is contempt for the power that the people give to the Republic to run it in their name.?

As Martin Luther King said: “The arc of the Moral Universe is long and exhausting, but in the end it leans towards the right.”

Therefore, I am here today, before you, as Mayor of Tirana, the largest city in our nation, with the right given to me by 160 thousand votes of free citizens of this city, at the end of this 9-month period in search of justice.

I am not here to defend myself, because I have not committed any offense. I am here to address you with all the respect that your high office deserves and to ask you for one thing: to defend together the democracy that is being put to the test.

The democracy that both you and I, honorable judges, have sworn to defend — not on paper, but in action, even in this hall, today.

This mandate is not mine. This mandate is a public covenant, a contract that the citizens of Tirana have given me of their free will. This covenant is the honor of my life and to protect it I will do everything that the law, the power of my mind and the strength of my heart allow me.?

I will defend it to the end because I am not defending a chair, but the spirit of a sacred bond between the citizen and his elected representative.

The people of this country, through their Constitution, have clearly decided that no one can terminate the mandate of a local elected official before the end of his term, except when he has committed serious violations of the Constitution or the law. This is not a new discovery; it is a solemn promise of the Republic to itself, a moral and legal boundary that no one — neither I nor you — should cross without first overthrowing the foundations of public trust on which the state itself is built.

Therefore, with full and solemn respect for this Court, I ask today:?
What serious violation of the Constitution or the law have I committed, in exercising the constitutional mandate of Mayor of Tirana?

My effort to protect the covenant with the citizens of Tirana, even under the conditions of being kidnapped in a cell, is my obligation to the citizens.

My belief that a free vote is stronger than political intrigue is the driving force that drives me to fight this battle.
?My conviction that justice should stem from the Constitution and not from political protagonism or the thirst for career at the expense of citizens' fundamental freedoms is unwavering.

I hope that what the Constitution protects will be said out loud in this hall, justified by you, and heard by every Albanian who still believes that the law should protect you, not unfairly attack you.

Honorable judges of the Constitutional Court,

This session is not about a job. This is a historic session, examining Albanian democracy itself, the foundations on which our state stands.?

Because since the day we adopted the Constitution of the Republic of Albania and accepted democracy as the highest value of the exercise of power by the sovereign — by the people — all of us, citizens, politicians, civil servants and you, honorable judges, have sworn to respect and protect that value.

We have sworn to defend democracy, not to use it. To preserve it as the most sacred treasure of the Republic, not to sacrifice it for the sake of the moment, for political convenience, or for temporary orders that conflict with the eternal law of justice.

This is the judicial issue that determines whether power will still belong to the citizens or will be taken from them in a secret and deceitful way, behind the curtains of games with articles and letters of the law. Whether the law will be used to protect democracy or to overthrow it in the name of formalisms.?

For when the power that comes from the vote is alienated with tactics to circumvent the will of the vote itself, then the trust of the citizens turns into moral betrayal. The power that they have given us to serve them is used to rule them, with the same means that it has placed in our hands to protect them. And then, the Republic is not endangered by any external enemy, but by those themselves who, under oath to protect it, use it to subjugate it.

"I swear on my honor that I will conscientiously perform the duties of Mayor and will obey the Constitution and the laws."

This was a fragment of the formula of my oath as Mayor, elected three times.?
Therefore, I am here today to defend my oath to the end — my contract with the citizens of Tirana. A contract that has been in my heart during every working hour, every morning and every evening, in the sun and in the rain, on every paved road, in every playground, in every school, kindergarten, nursery school, or boulevard, castle, square and park that has changed Tirana — from the terrible pandemic, where we delivered aid to the isolated, to the earthquake when we built homes for thousands of families.

And I will defend it here, in front of you, until the end. Because I do not believe there is anything more noble to do, nor anything more inspiring for a man who serves the public, than to defend the trust that was given to him by vote. The trust to lead not only the capital of Albania, but the capital of all Albanians, a city that beats with the pulse of the entire nation.

And when you believe you have given everything for this mandate of the citizens, the reason for which they remove you from office comes: "Absence from duty for more than three months."

They couldn't have insulted me more severely. It was the worst of my public life, because it came from my collaborators, from people who know me better than anyone else and who didn't even deign to listen to me.
?God forgive them! I pray every night for them: God, forgive them, for they don't know what they've done.

This "accusation" does not hurt me for the empty words and letters, but for the injustice it represents. As the saying goes: Two injustices do not make justice.?

The injustice of dismissal on top of the injustice of detention are not solutions. Because saying that Erion Veliaj has been absent from duty is not simply cynicism towards Erion Veliaj, but towards the truth and the law.?

Above all, said by those who witnessed the abduction from office without any charges, it seems like a message of insecurity for anyone who could be targeted for political reasons. It seems like a message that in this country, political desire and will, not the law, rule.

If there's anyone who can complain about my absence, it's only my mother and family — for a 10-year absence, no one else.
?I've met them more in prison than in freedom, where I'd leave them at work and find them asleep.

Dear Sirs,?

Since the first day I was sworn in as Mayor of Tirana in 2015, my life has become one with this city. I have led it with all my spiritual, mental and physical strength, sparing nothing of myself. This city has been my big family.?

I don't claim that I've done everything well, or that I've been able to do everything I wanted to do. But I know one thing for sure: No one can "accuse" me of not being up to the task.

Because whoever says that I have been absent insults the intelligence of all the citizens of Tirana who have trusted me three times in a row, precisely because they saw with their own eyes my dedication, my love for work and for the city.

A job from which I was unfairly and treacherously removed by those who wanted to see me in handcuffs and not with a shovel in my hands; those who did not want me in that office, because that office had become a symbol of love for the city and work — an epicenter of optimism and endless positive energy.

You can imprison a man, but not his truth. And the truth is that my absence was not a choice, but the result of an isolation imposed by the state, through a disproportionate decision, by anonymous letters and persecutory zeal, which deprived me not only of my freedom, but also of my city, before any guilt was proven.

How can the absence of a Mayor who is physically detained by the state authorities themselves, based on a decision that is not final, be called a "violation"?
?Do we want to legitimize the idea that any elected official can be removed from office through temporary arrest, without a guilty verdict, thereby taking away from the people the mandate that they themselves have freely voted for?

If this is accepted, then every elected mandate is no longer a guarantee of civic sovereignty, but a permit that can be taken away at any time by political will.?

If this is accepted, then the principle of the presumption of innocence loses its meaning, and punishment without a court decision becomes common practice. This would be a dangerous slide from the rule of law to the rule of prejudice.

This is not only a human injustice, but a blatant constitutional contradiction, because it punishes me for a fact that is neither an action nor a violation, but a situation imposed with the disproportionate force of the state itself.?
If this becomes a precedent, then every citizen of this country will live in fear that they may be punished not for what they have done, but for what any power decides to charge them with a priori.

Honorable Court,

If it is accepted that a mayor elected by popular vote can be removed from office without a final decision, then from tomorrow every city, every municipality and every popular mandate could fall prey to the political decisions of the moment.?
At that moment, elections lose meaning, the vote loses weight and civic sovereignty is replaced by the will of those who want to rule in the name of the law, but by subverting the law itself.

This is not democracy.?
This is the subversion of democracy.?
This is not the presumption of innocence, but the presumption of guilt, and where innocence is replaced by prejudice, justice ceases to exist.

I am not here today to ask for mercy or privilege. I come to ask for constitutional justice.?
Justice is the moral and ultimate shield of the Republic, that which protects the order that holds us together as a society.?
That which separates the just state from the state of fear, the law from arbitrariness, and the Republic from any form of rule.

At this crucial moment, you are not just a court considering a mayor's impeachment. You?
are — as Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, described it — "the intermediary body between the people and the government," created to keep government within the limits set by the Constitution.

When power exceeds itself, when political will seeks to replace the law, only your Constitutional Court has the power and duty to stop it.?

Only this court can bring the state back on track with the Constitution and protect citizens from the abuse of the power they themselves have given them. /CNA