On Wednesday, Prime Minister Edi Rama presented draft amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure in the presence of ambassadors from European countries.

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.

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