FLASH
Shkruar nga Av. Dorian Matlia
That sovereign advocacy fired twice against Gëllçi, once in Tirana against his right to run for director and once in Strasbourg against the groundless arrest and violation of the presumption of innocence...
I listened to the Prime Minister's public speech today, which took into account a public message that I posted on my Facebook page. Specifically, he did not agree that the State Attorney's Office had taken a pro-Thoma Gëllçi stance in Strasbourg, because after all, in his opinion, the State Attorney's Office, as a sovereign body representing the Republic of Albania, has a duty to protect the state and that it has no influence on the government. It seemed to me that on this occasion he deviated from the government's political responsibilities in relation to the human rights violations reported in Strasbourg. In fact, the Prime Minister is wrong, but I will not stop there. History has a content and a context.
To begin with, the State Attorney's Office depends on the Prime Minister. If it were different, it would depend on the Assembly. The State Attorney's Office in the Strasbourg courts is called the "government agent" and the state is protected by the executive branch. It is not protected by the Assembly or by any pocket of the judicial branch. The government may disagree with the domestic courts and may agree with the complainant who has sued Albania in Strasbourg. In fact, in every trial there in Strasbourg, the Court invites the parties to resolve the issue by agreement. And from time to time, it happens that an agreement is reached. In fact, it is part of the "check and balance" mechanism that is necessary. So, the country's courts can interfere in vain, violate the rights of individuals, and when the Strasbourg Court questions the "government agent" (the State Attorney's Office in our case), the latter may come out against the domestic courts and in favor of the individual complainant. In these cases, the State Attorney's Office makes an agreement, or unilateral statement, acknowledging the violations committed, and offering a solution to the problem, adding a compensation for damages that it voluntarily undertakes.
In practice, in at least three cases where I have been involved, the State Attorney's Office, during the time of this government, has offered amicable solutions. In the case of Veizi and others against Albania, in the case of Myrtaj and others against Albania, and in the case of Matlija against Albania. The first two are related to the violated rights of the families of those killed on January 21, and the third is related to the violation of the right to information that was committed against me personally by the Prime Minister's Office for a file that they did not give me. Perhaps there are others like these cases.
Why did the State Attorney's Office in the January 21 cases agree with the complainants and openly oppose the domestic courts? Because it was convinced that the Albanian courts had violated the standards. The complainants were ordered to reopen the investigations, as well as receive compensation for the hardships they had gone through to bring the case to Strasbourg. Is this course of action fair? Yes, it is fair and based on the Convention and the rules of the Strasbourg Court. But why didn't they do the same for Gëllçi? There were open violations of the standards by the Albanian courts. Strasbourg even made them clear from the way it asked the questions to the government. But the State Attorney's Office did not seem interested in agreeing with Gëllçi and even fought him through a multitude of letters and objections, turning white into black and black into green, as if the day of reckoning had come when the dangerous Gëllçi could suddenly transform into a victim and SPAK into a persecutor.
To put the reader into context, surprisingly, the State Attorney's Office was there against Gëllç even when he requested in the Tirana court that a competition be opened for the Director of RTSH. I say surprisingly because RTSH is usually defended by its own lawyers, except in the Gëllçi case where the RTSH lawyers were demonstratively stripped of their authorization in an unprecedented manner to directly transfer the defense to the State Attorney's Office, which even today I cannot understand why it opposed the opening of that damn competition. That competition that was eventually opened by court order, but only a few days after Gëllç's arrest, who could not re-run from the prison he was put in.
That sovereign advocacy, shot twice against Gëllçi, once in Tirana against his right to run for director and once in Strasbourg against the groundless arrest and violation of the presumption of innocence. That sovereign advocacy not only should not be seen as an extraterrestrial probe by the Prime Minister, but should, and as I said above has happened other times, be oriented by the government's policies. Even more so when it advertises that it is targeting the EU. Where there are violations of laws, conventions and standards, it should accept the violation and demand measures be taken, and not fight in vain against the entire logic of Strasbourg, or our domestic laws, when in the end it is still known that it will lose, but it will also lose a few years of our lives. The Government and the Prime Minister have all the possibilities to regulate standards not from the end when the pains of the arrival of an egg come, but when the first signs are given that something is wrong. Gëlçi gave the signal back in 2021. Not one signal, but two.
He gave the signal at a time when the only real danger that Gëllçi represented was that he had transformed RTSH into a monster that had suddenly sucked up viewership, had added a multitude of new channels, had swallowed up the competition, including the Champions League, Formula 1, etc., had invested in new technologies in the studio, in antennas, in computer programs and phone applications, had carried out administrative reform and even broadcast some bitter investigations. Someone, or some, perhaps wanted RTSH without a head and without Thoma, and ironically they accused him precisely for the achievements, for opening a new channel, for tendering for a new technology, for buying the Champions League, for that RTSH Tani application (may the memory of this now-defunct application be eternal), for the repaired antennas, for the way the computer manages the programs, and much more. The accusations against him fell one after another, but their effect, coupled with the spectacle of the arrest at the key moment of the re-nomination, caused the subsequent short-term director (elected a few days after Gëllçi was neutralized by arrest), perhaps terrorized by what was done to Gëllçi, not to take any important steps and quickly resigned. Then another short-term director, to my knowledge, was known in public only for the dismissals he made of a multitude of professionals. Today, RTSH is not only without a director, but also without a Board of Directors at all. Today, it has lost not only the temporary splendor it had during Gëllçi's time, but even the remnants of what is left are falling. And to think that the EU requires not only standards in justice, but also the improvement of public media.
SPAK and that sovereign advocacy behaved like that useful fool who killed two beautiful birds with one stone for European standards. They took away 10 months of Gëllçi's life in detention without standards, and they took away from RTSH the glory it should and could have as a public media with standards. Thoma Gëllçi is in good health and good humor today and solves the problems with the detention standards himself, but RTSH is sick today and it would not be surprising if it were to close down altogether. But, like every evil that has a good side, even in this case RTSH still has an increasing value and this is the value of the building's land.
Lini një Përgjigje