The High Judicial Council has started an extraordinary session, called to address the deadlock over judges’ pay.
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For three days, a significant number of courts across the country have suspended their activity as a form of protest against this situation.
This deadlock resulted from an initiative by the High Judicial Council and the High Council of Prosecution, which undertook to set judges’ and prosecutors’ pay themselves, in the absence of a solution from the Assembly for recalculating them, as ordered by the Constitutional Court.
During the opening of this meeting, the head of the HJC, Sokol Sadushi, stressed the unusual nature of the situation and pointed out that for the first time, as a result of a Constitutional Court decision, payments for judges and the administrative staff of courts have been suspended. He explained that the matter does not involve only a financial conflict, but affects the constitutional relations between the branches of power.
“The session is extraordinary because so is the moment we are living through. For the first time after a decision of the Constitutional Court, the salaries of judges and the administration have been blocked—an obstacle to the proper functioning of the courts. It is not simply a financial dispute, but a problem that affects the constitutional relations between the branches of power,” he declared.
Sadushi explained that calling the General Meeting in this urgent manner was made necessary by the severe state the judiciary is going through.
He emphasized that the salary blockage no longer represents merely an administrative challenge, but a real obstacle to the functioning of the courts and a matter that violates the constitutional order.
For this reason, the reaction could not remain isolated in a single court or council, but required a unified stance from the entire system.
He noted that the problem is not limited to the figures on the payroll, but tests the enforcement of final constitutional decisions even when this brings financial or institutional difficulties.
The HJC Chairman criticized attempts to portray this as a clash between the judiciary and the executive, stressing that the core is the obligation to implement a Constitutional Court decision. He added that this is not a contest of strength, but a test of the Constitution’s strength over every branch of power.
Sadushi clarified that the judiciary is not seeking privileges. Judges, he stressed, did not set the salary level, its increase, or the calculation method themselves. Their status is defined by the Constitution, the salary and guarantees by law, and the constitutionality of this arrangement has already been confirmed by the Constitutional Court.
He posed the question of how an institution can be asked to apply a formula that the Constitutional Court has struck down as unconstitutional, underlining that an annulled provision cannot be kept alive through administrative inaction.
He further elaborated the argument that the Assembly’s inaction cannot lead to the absence of a defined salary for a judge. Until the new law enters into force, the guarantee of Article 138 of the Constitution remains fully effective.
Sadushi insisted that in a state governed by the rule of law, the salary of an official is not an act of generosity, and the state budget must serve to enable the fulfillment of constitutional obligations, not the opposite.
He emphasized that a judge’s salary is part of their constitutional status and a concrete guarantee for independence in the exercise of their duty, protecting not only the magistrate but also the citizen who expects an impartial trial.
Another important dimension of his speech was also the aggravated situation of the judicial administration. Sadushi described it as unacceptable that secretaries, clerks, and other employees, who bear no responsibility for this impasse, should be left without income.
He stressed that the consequences of this dispute cannot be downloaded onto the family economies of these people and demanded the immediate unblocking of their salaries, calling it a human and institutional obligation.
The HJC head acknowledged that judges are accustomed to speaking through decisions and remaining silent even when attacked, but stressed that there is a limit beyond which silence is no longer prudence but an undermining of the guarantees of independence. He said you cannot demand justice to be strong while simultaneously weakening its institutions and leaving the administration without pay.
Sadushi called for a European institutional culture in dealing with this issue, emphasizing that EU integration is not only a legal process, but also a matter of respecting the separation of powers and the enforcement of court decisions, even when they are not liked.
He also called on the judiciary to remain united, using the strength given by the law and not political means, to oppose this situation.
Every administrative action, he said, can be subject to judicial review and this would not be an escalation of conflict, but a return of the matter to the terrain of law. Finally, he stressed that the HJC’s stance does not aim for confrontation, but for a solution, calling for the unblocking of salaries, the execution of overdue obligations, and the restoration of institutional dialogue based on mutual respect.
He concluded his speech with a personal reflection, saying that no judge should feel indebted to anyone for the salary they are legally entitled to and that their only responsibility is to the Constitution, the law, and the citizens. The protection of the independence of justice, he concluded, is at the same time the protection of every citizen’s right to live in a state where no power stands above the Constitution.
