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The Conference of Speakers on November 1 did not have strong debates between the majority and the opposition, also due to the fact that, apart from MP Dashamir Shehi, the other five DP representatives were absent or left the meeting.
In the meeting with closed doors, according to the clarification of the discussions in the minutes, those present also discussed the behavior of the opposition, which had just started the protest for blocking the work of the commissions as a reaction to the rejection of the demands for the establishment of parliamentary investigative commissions.
However, according to the Parliament's administration, the paper disclosure does not include a single moment during the several-hour meeting when the audio system 'did not work', during which the majority approved the controversial decision to move parliamentary committee meetings online.
Surprisingly, the decision to move parliamentary committees online – which is reflected in a special annex to the minutes of the meeting, is not remembered by the only opposition MP in the hall, Dashamir Shehi.
"It was not discussed at all," Shehi said in a telephone conversation, "because if it had been discussed, I would have opposed it as an abuse of parliamentary rights."
According to the agenda, the meeting of the Conference of Speakers included the presentation of the 2024 budget bill by the Minister of Finance, Ervin Mete, and the calendar for its approval, as well as the approval of the draft calendar of the Assembly's work for the next three weeks.
The move to online meetings allowed the majority to thwart the opposition's attempt to block parliamentary committees, passing a series of controversial acts, including an agreement with Italy to set up a refugee center in Lezha - suspended by the Court Constitutional, the amendment of the Rules of the Assembly and the amendment of the law on Investigative Commissions.
The regulation of the Assembly provides that online practice is used in cases of "state of war, state of emergency or natural disaster". The move to online work was opposed by the opposition as anti-legal and an attempt to silence the opposition voice.
Parliamentary committee meetings via the Zoom app were used for the first time in 2020 after the government declared a state of natural disaster due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Socialists tried to continue the practice in the parliamentary session in 2021, but after the objection of the opposition they withdrew.
According to the declassified minutes of the meeting of the Conference of Chairmen on November 1, provided by BIRN through a request for the right to information, in this meeting it does not appear that a decision was proposed, discussed or approved that would fundamentally change the way of functioning of Assembly in the next 2 months.
In the word-for-word analysis of the discussions in the minutes of the November 1 meeting, it is understood that the representatives of the majority were concerned about the situation where the commissions were not able to hold normal meetings. The Minister of State for Relations with the Parliament, Elisa Spiropali called the situation "a trap".
"Get them out of this trap as soon as possible, and they will have us here, both in the Conference of Presidents and as a majority, ready to answer about all their constitutional duties and demands," it is quoted. Spiropalus in the transcript of the meeting.
From the minutes, it is understood that at the end of the meeting, the draft calendar of the Assembly's work for the period 6-24 November 2023 and the draft calendar of the discussion on the new budget were approved, but no document for the conduct of online meetings.
The only opposition deputy at the meeting, Dashamir Shehi, asked the majority to reflect and give space to the opposition in parliamentary life, referring to the demands for the parliamentary investigation.
"If you are going to use the majority that you have today as a bludgeon to hit anything that according to your ideas seems wrong, I say that you have chosen the wrong path within the field of parliamentarism," he is quoted as saying to his socialist colleagues. .
On Tuesday, the legal director of the Assembly, Merita Qato, sent BIRN with a photo on the Whatsapp application a document with the title "annex-proceedsverbali", an unusual thing for such documents, where it was said that the proposal and approval of the decision to move the meetings online it was done in the absence of audio-video recording.
According to this document, the proposal was made by deputies Arben Pëllumbi and Eduard Shalsi and had the support of all the members present at the meeting.
"This minutes annex is kept because the proposal, discussion and approval of the request of the deputies took place in the absence of audio-video recording" - is written at the end and signed by Lindita Nikolla, Ermonela Felaj, Elisa Spiropali, Bledi Çuçi, Klotilda Bushka , Mimi Kodheli, Eduard Shalsi, Arben Pëllumbi and Nasip Naço.
The document appears to have been written in haste, with spelling mistakes and partly with 'e' instead of 'ë' and MPs' names with abbreviations, unlike the full minutes that the information coordinator made available on Friday.
Qato was not able to give an answer as to why this document was not attached to the full minutes of the meeting initiated by the Assembly and why the minutes did not reflect the existence of an annex. Meanwhile, she claimed that MP Dashamir Shehi does not have his name in the annex because he left the meeting and it was not at the time when the decision was made for online meetings.
Shehi said that he left the meeting after the 3-week work calendar was approved, a moment that coincides with the closing of the meeting in the minutes transcript.
"But they may have made it later, a formal decision, they can make it at any time," he suggested, adding that, "they are making it formally in the plenary session hall, no longer where there are 7 people". BIRN
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