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Veliaj complains to the Constitutional Court about his collaborators: They have seriously insulted me

2025-10-31 12:07:00, Aktualitet CNA

Veliaj complains to the Constitutional Court about his collaborators: They have

Erion Veliaj continued his victimization in his speech before the Constitutional Court, where he complained that the members of the Municipal Council had seriously insulted him with the reason they presented for his dismissal.

Veliaj continued by saying that only his family and no one else can complain about his absence since his arrest.

Meanwhile, he has said again that his arrest and removal from office was unfair, despite the fact that he faces several serious charges.

"The reason for removing you from office is coming. Absence from duty for more than three months. They could not have insulted me more severely. It was the most serious insult of my public life. This is because it came from my associates and they know me better than anyone else, and they did not deign to invite me or inform me or listen to me. May God forgive them, I pray every night for them. This accusation hurts me for the injustice it represents. Two injustices do not produce justice. The injustice of dismissal on top of the injustice of detention is not a solution. Because saying that Erion Veliaj has been absent from duty is not simply cynicism with Erion Veliaj, but with the truth and the law.

Above all, said by those who witnessed the abduction from the 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 rule, not the law. If there is anyone who can complain about my absence, it is only my mother and family, for a 10-year absence, no one else. I have met them more in prison than in freedom, where I left them at work and found them sleeping.

Since the first day I was sworn in in 2015 as Mayor of Tirana, my life has become one with this city. I have led it with all my spiritual, mental and physical strength, without sparing anything of myself. This city has been my big family. I do not claim that I have done everything well, or that I have been able to do everything I wanted to do. But, one thing I know for sure: No one can “accuse” me of not being on duty. 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 unjustly 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 an infinite positive energy. You can imprison a man, but not his truth. And the truth is that my absence was not a choice, but a consequence 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, by 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 revoked 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 can 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 simply a court considering a dismissal from office of a mayor.

"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 power 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 return the state to the tracks of the Constitution and protect the citizen from the abuse of the power he himself has given him," said Veliaj. /CNA





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