Dr. Veronika Horrer, Managing Director of the German Federal Bar Association; lawyers Anke Müller-Jacobsen and Stephan Schneider; Dr. Henrik Ligori, Albanian lawyer; Rezarta Abdiu, Bar Association of Albania (from left to right) Albania
In partnership with the Bar Association of Albania and the German Federal Bar Association, represented by its Managing Director, Dr. Veronika Horrer, the IRZ organised a seminar on the code of criminal procedure for lawyers on 4 and 5 June 2019 in Tirana.
On the first day of the seminar, Albanian lawyer Arben Prifti gave an introduction to the 2017 reform of the code of criminal procedure in Albania. He explained that some uncertainties had arisen as a result of the reform. These concern, for example, onus of proof and appraising evidence, as well as the rights of the accused and the responsibilities of the judicial authorities. The explanations of Arben Prifti were followed by lively discussions involving the participants.
The German speakers, lawyers Anke Müller-Jacobsen and Stephan Schneider from Berlin, joined in the discussions and presented legal standards in Germany. They also gave lectures on the following topics:
Investigation proceedings in Germany,
court proceedings under criminal law and
appeals, reviews and the reopening of proceedings in Germany.
The second day of the seminar was opened by Maksim Haxhia, President of the Bar Association of Albania. After he had addressed the 80 or so participants, Albanian experts looked in more detail at topics that had already been discussed the previous day, as well as reporting on Albanian legal standards, which do not exist as such in Germany:
The preliminary meeting, including the role of judges,
alternative proceedings in Albania and
accelerated proceedings.
As had been the case the previous day, Anke Müller-Jacobsen and Stephan Schneider put forward the German point of view to mirror the Albanian contributions and thereby made a critical contribution towards the mutual understanding of the legal situation and the success of the event.
Prof. Dr. Sokol Sadushi, President of the Albanian School of Magistrates; Prof. Dr. Bernd Heinrich, University of Tübingen; Dr. Idlir Peci, an international expert at EURALIUS (from left to right) Albania
On 23 and 24 May 2019, the IRZ, in partnership with the Albanian School of Magistrates, organised a workshop for Albanian authors of legal commentaries. The objective of the event was to achieve a significant increase in the number and quality of commentaries on the platform for e-commentaries developed in 2017.
The workshop took place as part of a project organised by the IRZ, which is being financed by the German Foreign Office and has the objective of further developing the first legal commentary developed in Albania.
After all, a transparent, uniform jurisdiction under the rule of law is vital in view of the acceptance of the Albanian legal system by law professionals and citizens, as well as bringing the Balkan countries closer to the EU.
The project ties in with the work of national and international experts, who have developed an electronic platform as part of the EU action grant EURALIUS 2017 [LINK to EURALIUS], where several e-commentaries on Albanian legal standards can already be found.
To open the workshop, IRZ expert Prof. Dr. Bernd Heinrich (University of Tübingen) provided insights into the German tradition of writing commentaries. During the subsequent discussions, the following topics were addressed:
The advantages and disadvantages of online commentaries compared with print commentaries,
various citation systems,
international commentary standards and
a comparison between Albanian and German commentary methods.
Based on the outcome of these discussions, the participants worked on a standard methodology for drafting commentaries and agreed on the next steps to take. Under the guidance of the expert advisory board, which is made up of Prof. Dr. Heinrich, Prof. Dr. Jörg Kinzig (University of Tübingen), Prof. Dr. Martin Heger (Humboldt University in Berlin) and two Albanian experts, a total of seven authors will comment by the end of next year on articles of the Albanian criminal procedure law, as well as on the law on the status of judges and public prosecutors.
Afterwards, the project will be rounded off with events for the general public in Albania, during which the results of the project will be presented, raising awareness of this field amongst law professionals and public institutions.
Prof. Dr. Michaela Wittinger, Prof. Dr. Sokol Sadushi, Altina Nasufi and Kaliona Nushi (from left to right) Albania
As part of the curriculum for the Albanian School of Magistrates, the IRZ held a seminar on 11 and 12 March 2019, covering the distinction between constitutional and administrative jurisdiction. The background behind the seminar was the development of the Constitutional Court of Albania according to the German model, as well as the reintroduction of administrative jurisdiction in Albania in 2013. The President of the School of Magistrates, Prof. Dr. Sokol Sadushi, welcomed the 25 or so administrative judges taking part in the seminar and went on to talk about the examination of the illegality or unconstitutionality of acts with a legislative nature, individual acts and legislation. Several provisions in the Albanian constitution with regards to disputes over areas of authority between the two jurisdictions led to lively discussions.
Prof. Dr. Michaela Wittinger, an IRZ expert and professor of State and Constitutional Law at the Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences in Mannheim, picked up the discussions and explained that, unlike in Albania, the constitutional conformity of laws in Germany is only very seldom checked once the laws have come into effect. After she had reported on the protection of the individual through German constitutional jurisdiction with regard to the monitoring of acts of parliament, Kaliona Nushi, a lecturer at the School of Magistrates, introduced the subject “Individuals and Albanian constitutional jurisdiction”.
Altina Nasufi, another lecturer at the School of Magistrates, opened the second day of the seminar with a lecture on monitoring the illegality of acts with a legislative nature by the Albanian Administrative Court of Appeal. The seminar was concluded by Prof. Dr. Wittinger. She began by explaining how the individual is protected by German administrative jurisdiction, drawing on a few cases from the previous year, and then went on to draw parallels with European law, describing its influence on German constitutional and administrative jurisdiction.
