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Democratic Party MP and EPP Women Vice President, Albana Vokshi, denounced the recent changes to the Criminal Code in Albania at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Vokshi said that they contradict the recommendations of the Council of Europe, the EU and the OSCE/ODIHR. She stressed that keeping defamation a criminal offense creates legal uncertainty and an intimidating effect on journalists and civil society.
Vokshi announced that currently 77 journalists in Albania are facing criminal charges for defamation and accused the majority of double standards.
"Thank you, Mr. Leader. I will speak about the adoption of the Criminal Code in Albania and the intimidating effect it creates on the media. This week, on Tuesday evening, after midnight, the Albanian Parliament adopted amendments to the Criminal Code that directly contradict the findings and recommendations of the Council of Europe itself.
Just a few months ago, the Council of Europe facilitated the work of working groups within the Dialogue Platform on Freedom of Expression. Independent legal experts reached a clear and unanimous conclusion: defamation and insult should be fully decriminalized, without exceptions, without registers and without conditions. Criminalization, they warned, creates a chilling effect on journalists, civil society, whistleblowers and all those who speak out in the public interest. However, instead of implementing this recommendation, the socialist majority in the Albanian Parliament chose a different path, contrary to the recommendations of this Assembly, the OSCE/ODIHR, the European Union and the repeated calls of national and international journalists’ organizations.
Defamation therefore remains a criminal offence. Protection becomes selective and conditional. Legal uncertainty deepens and the risk of intimidation through criminal proceedings remains. As we speak, 77 journalists in Albania are facing criminal charges for defamation, brought by ministers, mayors, former prosecutors and former judges dismissed by the vetting process. This constitutes a serious threat to freedom of expression and the safety of journalists. European standards are clear: defamation and insult must be dealt with, or not at all, or only through civil law and in a proportionate manner.
This constitutes a direct deviation from the standards of the Council of Europe, from Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and from the long-standing position of this Assembly that criminal law should never be used to regulate public debate. The Criminal Code was voted, among others, by the Deputy Prime Minister, whose parliamentary immunity is currently being blocked to prevent her arrest, despite the formal request of the Special Prosecution Office against Corruption (SPAK). The irony is painful. In Albania, an ordinary citizen risks prison for double parking in the wrong place, while a Deputy Prime Minister under investigation for violations in public procurement worth 1.1 billion euros remains untouchable and votes for criminal legislation," said Vokshi, among others.
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