Albania

Conference on “Judicial ethics and disciplinary proceedings against judges”

IRZ organised a conference on 14-15 November 2022 on the specifics of disciplinary proceedings against judges which explored issues of judicial ethics with the Special Appeals Chamber of the Republic of Albania. The IRZ invited Dr Frank Czaja, Presiding Judge at the Cologne Higher Regional Court and Dr Ingo Werner, Judge at the Cologne Higher Regional Court provided insights into German practice.

The first day of the event was attended by six judges and ten scientific employees of the Special Appeals Chamber to discuss questions of substantive disciplinary law. The conference started with a welcome from Ms. Anja Finke, Deputy Head of the IRZ section Southeast Europe II and South Caucasus and Ms. Albana Shtylla, President of the Special Appointments Chamber of the Republic of Albania. She gave a detailed explanation of the role, tasks and current challenges of the Special Appeals Chamber. The subsequent presentations by the two German experts focused in particular on the course of official disciplinary proceedings and the proceedings before the judicial service courts.

The second day of the event focused on the formal aspects of disciplinary proceedings against judges and was aimed at around 20 employees of the administrative apparatus of the Special Appeals Chamber The participants discussed questions around the anonymisation and publication of decisions in the context of disciplinary proceedings along with formal points regarding responsibilities, procedures and deadlines.

The event was supported by the Federal Foreign Office as part of a project funding on “court organisation”, and was held in a climate of trust and honest discussion and a particularly active and fascinating exchange between the German team of speakers and the representatives of the Special Appeals Chamber.

Seminar on constitutional complaints for the Albanian legal profession

On 12 October 2022 IRZ, in cooperation with the Albanian Bar Association, organised an advanced seminar for Albanian lawyers on the subject of “constitutional complaints”.

The event followed a series of seminars on constitutional complaints that were launched in 2018. After the events were held online between 2020 and early 2022 due to the pandemic, the 14th seminar in the series in Vlora (Albania) was again held as a face-to-face event and therefore attracted great interest among the Albanian legal profession.

Prof Dr Maksim Haxhia, President of the Albanian Bar Association, and Frank Hupfeld, Head of the IRZ's South East Europe II and South Caucasus section, opened the seminar in front of 32 Albanian and 3 Kosovan lawyers. The IRZ invited Prof Dr Jan Bergmann, Presiding Judge at the Administrative Court of Baden-Württemberg and Prof Dr Arta Vorpsi, Professor of constitutional law, on the European dogmatics of human rights, to give presentations on the test schemes in the violation of fundamental freedom and equality rights and the admissibility requirements of the Albanian constitutional complaints system. The theoretical basics were explored using concrete case studies and practical exercises.

In particular, the event offered the opportunity for a practice-oriented and comparative exchange of experience and expertise between German and Albanian legal practitioners to familiarise themselves with the specific features, prerequisites and practical significance of constitutional complaints.

The series of seminars was held to examine the change in the Albanian constitution in 2016, through which Albanian citizens may address individual constitutional complaints directly to the Albanian constitutional court.