FLASH
Shkruar nga Andi Bushati
The trials against Meta, Veliaj, and Berisha must be held in front of cameras, so as not to repeat the shameful farce of the trial against Beler.
After a long period of glory, dressed in standard phrases that it is ending impunity, that it is cleansing the old political class, that it is opening a new period in the country's history, SPAK will face the court these days with the largest files of accusations it has filed, those against Meta, Veliaj and Berisha.
The curtain is rising on their foundation trials, where the rhetoric will end and the evidence will be discussed primarily, and a new debate is being raised: the defendants' constant demand that the trials be held with cameras present and everything broadcast live.
At first glance, such a request may seem controversial. Many democratic countries do not allow such a practice. Especially when it comes to figures with high public impact and influence on opinion, there is a fear of destroying the solemnity of the court and turning the dock into a tribune for political spectacle.
But, despite these risks, there is no doubt that the fulfillment of the request of these VIP defendants should be fulfilled since it is in the public interest. First, Albanian law does not prohibit the live broadcast of trials. A good example, one of the rare ones that the Constitutional Court can cite, was the case of the discussion of Erion Veliaj's mayoral mandate, where the trial was broadcast live, giving priority to the principle of transparency.
Secondly, this transparency is almost mandatory in the context of the controversies that have accompanied the “new justice” since it began to deal with senior politicians. It has been accused of repressive methods, of intimidation of witnesses, of selective selection of facts. If it is truly intended to preserve in these processes what is left of the credibility of the reform, then the doors must be open to hear the arguments of all parties. If the public were convinced by the confrontation between the arguments of the SAPK and its defendants, if it were to accept the verdict of the GJKKO as fair and impartial, then some of the criticism against the prosecutors and special judges would be dismissed.
But there is another reason, perhaps the most important, why these court hearings should be broadcast live. In the only political trial to date, the first in which a final decision has been reached, the one against Fredi Beleri, our justice system has produced a scandal. In this farce instigated by Edi Rama, in order to take away from the opposition one more of the seven municipalities it had won, our new justice system produced a copy of the trials of the darkest times of the dictatorship.
By serving and accepting false witnesses, paid as police spies; by serving and accepting falsified wiretap reports; by serving and accepting illegally obtained evidence; by serving and accepting vote-buying money that did not bear the fingerprints of the accused, and by not even allowing something basic in a process, such as confronting witnesses to bring out the truth, SPAK and GJKKO became part of a criminal farce, where justice is used as a political weapon. And all this took place behind closed doors that enabled the masquerades with nationalist flags to hide the real debate about the facts and evidence.
After this colossal failure, the new justice bodies no longer have the luxury of seeking a second vote of confidence, hiding behind the principle of judicial solemnity. They must open the doors to all trials where Ilir Meta, Erion Veliaj and Sali Berisha will be tried.
So that the farce against the "vile Greek" is not repeated on Albanians, so that the assumption preached by the former head of SPAK, that the court blindly obeys his team, does not become a path, so that the truth is not a monopoly of the parrots of the special prosecutors, the public good requires transparency. Tens of thousands of voters who have given their trust to those who will appear in the dock, have the right to know whether or not their political representatives are being punished based on evidence and not in the name of a "revolution" in a Euro-Atlantic costume, which aims to use justice to change the political class. Therefore, SPAK and GJKKO must accept the demands of their detainees. This is the last chance to convince the public that these judges and prosecutors have the ability and honesty necessary to be up to the level of the challenge they have taken on.
Lini një Përgjigje