For those who believe that the Codes are written on the curbs of the Boulevard

2025-08-02 18:37:00, Politikë CNA

There is a heated debate about a draft launched by the Ministry of Justice as an initiative for the drafting of a new Criminal Code.
What has happened is the launch of a draft, which should be subject to technical debate and not media debate.

The Criminal Code of the Republic of Albania is already outdated and often does not reflect at all the measures and punishments for violations that the evolution of the individual, society and the state has produced.
The current code has undergone several changes since the approval of the central corpus in its early days.

Meanwhile, not only have many laws changed that have regulated previously unregulated aspects, supplementing specific areas with legislation, but the Constitution itself has also changed. Each specific law also tends to provide provisions for violations of the rules stipulated therein. Among the formulations of violations, one can extract those that require an interface with criminal law.

And the addition of new figures of criminal offenses in this case will have to be done through the addition of articles with fractions, leaving open the possibility of a lack of coordination of terms throughout the entire corpus of existing criminal provisions. In investigative and judicial practice there are many such cases. Interpreting them in different ways is a subject and space for abuse and why not even corruption within the body of magistrates.

The addition of several new figures of violations that are not reflected in the Criminal Code or the identification of an increase in statistics for certain violations leads to the need for new wording of articles in the Criminal Code.

For all of this, ultimately the decision-making on the need to draft a new law belongs to the executive.

This has been the case since the time when this state did not yet have a constitution and was reading and implementing a law on several provisions of a constitutional nature.

Every initiative that is not an initiative of deputies goes through the executive.
Since always!

If we take as a reference date for history, the time when, for example, Fatmir Xhafaj was Minister, we can say that this was how it was, before, during, and after Fatmir Xhafaj's ministry.
Therefore, it seems surprising that experienced journalists do not know so much.

In the Assembly, legal initiatives are forwarded by one of the ministers, and this is universal knowledge that would hardly have become a topic if there were not segments within the majority today that, since they are blindly controlled only by small interest groups, pump up debates like these.

Minister Manja is simply the minister who decided to launch a legislative initiative that he did not write.
God forbid he would have done this too!
The motives that fuel the attack are so clear that it seems as if today one could place a bet with a guaranteed victory that this debate would not have happened at all if, for example, the minister's name had been Fatmir Xhafaj.

Regarding the justice reform, for which the public's only expectation today is limited to SPAK, no one is heard accusing Fatmir Xhafaj of political and professional incompetence.
For example, there is a debate about that reform today that borders on the unbelievable, even about the duration of the mandates of the members of the Constitutional Court.

And amidst the institutional controversy, Father Fatmir does not speak out to give his version regarding those dates, like a man who loves the decorations of the father of the reform.
There is no doubt that the attacks on the Minister who launched the initiative of the new Penal Code for public debate are absurd.

The minister does not draft laws, although it would be lucky for this country to have a minister who could also draft laws.
But these people don't know!

But blaming a Minister for having set up a working group of experts to draft a law is sheer stupidity. There is no minister who has not followed this practice when launching a new draft.

The Minister on that occasion did his duty. He formalized the work of drafting the draft. That work that Etilda Gjonaj had not formalized for more than 2 years. Maybe because he felt left out, as long as everything came to him on orders from Fatmir, or maybe because he was wary of this jealous attack by Fatmir Xhafaj lest his soldier get the credit and not him.

Accusing the Minister of having called on institutions that are affected by the implementation of the law, and therefore potentially have the necessary expertise, to participate in the comments and opposition to a law is a blunder that not even the accountant of the Qendër-Kinostudio line could make.
This is a routine action and the first act that every minister signs at the start of work on drafting a draft.

The absurdity reaches the point where on one hand the minister is accused of having written the project himself and on the other hand he is accused of having gathered experts to write it and to provide opposition.
Someone wants foreign experts to write it without understanding that foreign experts work with Albanian experts.

And then those who want foreign experts are the same ones who accused the group of Albanian experts that Xhafaj put in place of writing personal deals for justice reform. While the foreign experts simply sold the advertisement at a high price.

Or are they seeking to give Berisha a role in drafting the Code through a bipartisan commission where the person Berisha will appoint will negotiate with Fatmir for the Code? Albana Vokshi just gave the first signal, joining those who raised the whirlwind of attacks against a text that, if launched today, could find its approval only after 2 years.

For others who are not part of the fight, we advise not to take this Xhafists' battle for the Criminal Code too seriously. Fatmir is simply asking that the Code be passed to the Committee where he believes he will be the chairman in the Assembly.
To shine it as he shone the justice reform!

But if this happens, then you can be sure that these orders that Ulsiu approved and for which he is being accused of causing the disaster, Fatmir himself will list them in detail in the reports accompanying the draft.

Explaining that the drafting, review and launch of the initiative was done according to all the procedures foreseen for the case.
But of course, claiming the next decorations himself, as Fatmir.