On Wednesday, Prime Minister Edi Rama presented draft amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure in the presence of ambassadors from European countries.
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Addressing the Albanian prosecutors and judges in attendance, Rama said pretrial detention should be a last resort and that Albania could not be compared with Russia.
Edi Rama: How can we accept an even more shocking comparison with Russia? In the homeland of repression, pretrial detainees make up 30% of the prison population. That is not even half the figure in Albania, which is negotiating with the EU. Esteemed prosecutors and judges, we cannot continue with figures like these: families torn apart, children traumatized and irreparable consequences. We are a very small country, and a people with a traumatic history, to suffer the harm of such a policy. It is also a dramatic fate for a society that does not become better when the scales of justice tip toward repression.
Pretrial detention, which should be a last resort, is the center of gravity of criminal proceedings in Albania. It is routinely requested using stock phrases, without a genuine assessment of the person or the risks to the proceedings. This package is a concrete response to a concrete problem. Albania has nothing against those currently in pretrial detention; this is about human freedoms and rights. The package amounts to one-fifth of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It rests on one principle: every step in the process must be based on law and subject to substantive review.
