Thirteen months after Albania became the first country in the world with an AI-generated “minister”, the key question remains unanswered: is it legal?
On Thursday, 8 October, Albania’s Constitutional Court rejected a request from MPs of the opposition Democratic Party (PD) to annul President Bajram Begaj’s decrees on “Diella”. It said the case fell outside its powers, and that the opposition MPs had no legal standing to bring part of it.
As a result, the Court never ruled on whether her appointment complies with the Constitution.
"Who" is Diella?
Diella is a computer program that appears as a woman dressed in traditional Albanian costume. She was first introduced in January 2025 as a virtual assistant on e-Albania, the government services portal, where she helped citizens with questions about obtaining state documents.
In September 2025, after the Socialist Party won the elections, Prime Minister Edi Rama presented Diella as a member of the new cabinet: a virtual “minister” for artificial intelligence, tasked with overseeing public procurement tenders.
The news made headlines around the world.
According to the government, Diella was built by Albania’s National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI) using Microsoft technology. But the government has not published any technical information showing how she works, or whether she does anything more than an ordinary virtual assistant.
Patrick Quirk, author of an analysis published on Substack, says that after examining the code behind Diella’s web page he found no trace of artificial intelligence, describing her as “an avatar with no brain”.
His analysis only covers what appears on screen and cannot show what happens on government servers, so his claim has not been independently verified.
What did the opposition challenge?
In the decree appointing Rama as Prime Minister, President Begaj included the following provision:
The Prime Minister also exercises responsibility for the establishment and functioning of the Virtual Minister for Artificial Intelligence "Diella".
A similar sentence was included in the decree on the composition of the government.
Opposition MPs took both provisions to the Constitutional Court, making two main arguments.
The first concerns the separation of powers. According to the opposition MPs, the President has no authority to create a new ministerial structure, or to give the Prime Minister new duties that are not set out in the Constitution or the law. In doing so, they argue, he overstepped his powers and encroached on those of other institutions.
The second concerns the office of minister itself. The Constitution sets out who can become a minister, how ministers are appointed and sworn in, and how they carry out their duties and are held accountable.
According to the opposition MPs, a “virtual minister” cannot meet any of these requirements, so the decree breaches several articles of the Constitution on the powers of the President, the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers, and on the appointment and swearing-in of ministers.
What the Court decided
Albania's Constitutional Court was asked to review the case on three grounds. In its ruling, it said it had no power to do so on any of them.
1. Reviewing a normative act. The Court can strike down normative acts, meaning laws and regulations that set rules for everyone. But the Court ruled that the sentence on Diella only gives a task to the Prime Minister; it creates no new ministry or powers.
2. Resolving a conflict of competence. The Court resolves disputes over which branch of the state holds a given constitutional power. But only a body that is itself part of the dispute, or directly affected by it, can bring such a case. According to the ruling, opposition MPs are neither.
3. Checking eligibility for office. The Court can check whether a minister, or another office-holder named in the Constitution, meets the legal conditions for the post. But in the Court’s view, despite the word “minister” in the decree, Diella is not a constitutional office-holder, so there is nothing to check.
As a result, by majority vote, the Court rejected the opposition’s request, and the President’s decrees remain in force.
The Court’s message: a machine cannot be held responsible
Although it rejected the request, the Court did not stay silent on artificial intelligence. It stressed that using artificial intelligence cannot change the rules on who exercises power in the state, who bears responsibility and who is accountable.
According to the Court, a technological tool cannot create, expand, transfer or replace the powers of public institutions.
In practice, this means Diella can be used as a working tool, but she cannot be held responsible for anything.
If a tender turns out to be rigged or a decision is unfair, responsibility lies with the people who run and use the program, starting with the Prime Minister, whom the decree put in charge of setting it up and running it.
What remains unanswered
The ruling leaves an odd situation. The government still calls Diella a “minister”, while the Constitutional Court says that, legally, she is not.
And the Court left open whether the President can call a computer program a “minister” in an official decree.
The decision, taken by majority vote, came more than four months after the Court heard the case in a plenary session on 26 May 2026.
The full judgment, setting out the Court’s reasoning, is expected to be published later and may clarify where the Court draws the line between a technological tool and a member of the government.
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