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BIRN: Parliament has been dragging out procedures for SPAK's request for Balluk's arrest for 2 months. The government calls it a European standard!
2026-01-20 17:33:39 / POLITIKË
For two months, the Albanian Parliament has been dragging out the procedures for reviewing the Special Prosecution's request for authorization of the arrest of Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku, while the latter has been taken as a defendant and is being investigated for the criminal offense of 'violation of equality in tenders' in several procedures worth hundreds of millions of euros.
But for the Minister of State for Relations with Parliament, Toni Gogu, the Parliament's behavior shows 'a European behavior' and does not undermine justice reform.
"From the moment the prime minister of a political force notices that there is an encroachment by another power on the powers of the power he leads and addresses the court, he does not anathematize or blackmail the prosecutor of the structure in a vulgar personal or family way, but addresses the state arbitrator, which is the court. I call this Europeanization and consolidation of the justice reform, because the institutions will speak," Gogu said on Tuesday in response to BIRN's question.
Gogu made the comments during a media conference, where, accompanied by the Minister of State for Integration, Majlinda Dhuka, and the Minister of State for Anti-Corruption, Adea Pirdeni, they spoke about the steps the government is taking in approximating legislation within the framework of negotiations with the European Union.
According to Gogu, the Assembly will wait for the judicial conflict between the Prime Minister and the Special Court to be resolved before expressing its opinion on SPAK's request, referring to the issue of the next measure against Balluk, which will be reviewed on January 22 at the Constitutional Court.
"When institutions respect each other's deadlines, each other's independence, and when they engage in procedural 'competition' before the courts precisely to do this, this is Europeanization and institutionalization and does not at all undermine justice reform, on the contrary, it adds another element of security," he further claimed.
SPAK submitted to the Assembly the request for authorization to implement a new detention measure against Balluk along with a voluminous investigative file against her, but after a meeting of the Mandates Council was interrupted in the middle, the Speaker of the Assembly Niko Peleshi rejected the requests of the opposition members for a meeting of this council, leaving the consideration of the request suspended.
Balluku was indicted in October for the Llogara Tunnel, while later charges were added against her for violating equality in tenders and for the Tirana Ring Road.
The Special Court, GJKKO, imposed the measure of banning movement abroad and suspension from executive duties as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Energy, a measure which was appealed by Prime Minister Edi Rama to the Constitutional Court as an interference of the judicial power in the powers of the executive power.
The second meeting of the Mandates Council has been announced for January 28. /BIRN
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