Albania’s socialist majority has decided to shield corrupt officials from public scrutiny of the investigations against them, including the evidence prosecutors have gathered.
Under amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code poised to pass by the parliament in the coming days, the public would learn nothing concrete about criminal investigations into corrupt politicians until they stand trial. That can be years after an investigation begins.
If the case is dropped, the public may never learn anything at all.
Had these changes been in force, the public would not have learned that prosecutors found villas believed to belong to former Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku until the first hearing of her trial, if there is ever a trial. If the case were dropped, the public would never have found out.
Under the new rules, anyone who made that information public, whether a person on their Facebook page, a news outlet, an NGO or even a lawyer in the case, could be sued for damages. The lawyer would also face disciplinary action.
Some of the proposed changes in the Criminal Procedure Code are reasonable. The proposal bans publishing the names and photos of children involved in criminal cases, protects victims, and stops the media from showing images of people in handcuffs.
But the rest of the changes do something with far bigger consequences.
The current code already bans the publication of investigation files, but it only punishes the state employees who leak them: prosecutors, judges, investigators and other justice officials. Nobody else faces any consequences.
In practice, this means the media have been free to publish documents passed to them by sources.
The new rules target everyone, and above all the media.
They set out what journalists can report, when they can report it, and what happens to them if they break the rules.
What does change
Nothing gets published without a court’s permission. The ban now covers everyone, from officials and lawyers to ordinary citizens. No one can publish facts or documents from an investigation, not even on their own social media, without first getting permission from a court.
Years of silence. Investigation documents cannot be published until the first hearing of the trial. If the case is closed without a trial, the ban can last for another year.
Arrest rulings go dark. A court’s decision to arrest or detain an official can no longer be made public until the trial begins.
Wiretaps are almost entirely off limits. Intercepted conversations cannot be published, except for the parts a court quotes in its ruling or that are used at trial.
Journalists will need a judge’s approval. A journalist who obtains a document from an investigation cannot publish it without first asking a court for permission. This also applies to documents the media obtained before the law takes effect.
SPAK says less. The Special Prosecution Office (SPAK) and other prosecutors may inform the public only when it is “strictly necessary" and without releasing any documents.
The freedom-of-information route is closed. Journalists can no longer turn to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner, and they cannot obtain copies of case files, because they do not have an “interest connected to the proceedings”.
The media can be sued. Anyone who publishes in breach of these rules can be sued for damages, including by the very person under investigation.
A hypothetical case: how it would work in practice
Take a case like those Albania has seen in recent years: an imaginary minister, X. SPAK suspects him of rigging a €50 million tender in favour of a company close to him.
The day of the arrest. SPAK arrests the minister. Today, the public would learn from the court ruling what he is accused of, what the main evidence is, and why the court decided to keep him in custody.
Under the new law, SPAK can issue only a short statement. The court ruling cannot be published. The public knows a minister has been arrested, but not why.
A few days later. A journalist obtains from a source the transcript of a wiretap in which the minister tells a businessman, “Don’t worry, the tender is yours.”
Today, that conversation would be front-page news. Under the new law, the journalist must ask a court for permission to publish it. The court may refuse, or it may decide weeks or months later, when the story has gone cold.
If the journalist publishes without permission, the outlet can be sued for damages by the minister himself.
Meanwhile, the minister talks. The law allows a defendant to give the public “his side” of events. So the minister, himself or through his lawyer, can say he is “the victim of a political witch hunt” and that “there is no evidence.”
The journalist holding the evidence cannot publish it. The public hears only one version: the defendant’s.
Two years of investigation. Major corruption investigations often take one to three years before a trial begins. Throughout that time, the case files stay sealed.
If an election falls in between, voters go to the polls knowing nothing concrete about the charges against a minister or a candidate.
If the case is closed. Suppose the case is dropped, for example because the statute of limitations has run out.
The publication ban can last for another year. The decision closing the case cannot present the minister as guilty, even if the evidence was strong.
The public never learns what really happened to the €50 million tender.
“This is what Europe requires"
The government will argue that these changes come from the EU directive on the presumption of innocence. But the directive requires authorities, such as prosecutors, police and officials, not to present a suspect as guilty before a court rules. It does not require journalists to get a judge’s permission before publishing a story.
The real-world consequences
The changes proposed by the Socialists would have serious consequences for investigating corruption and for keeping the public informed about how the country is governed.
The public learns only what it is allowed to. Information about investigations into officials will pass through the filter of the courts and the bare-minimum statements of prosecutors.
An uneven playing field between the accused and the media. An official under investigation can freely proclaim his innocence. A journalist cannot show the evidence that contradicts him.
Sources go quiet. If every document needs a court’s approval, it becomes harder for sources to help journalists and harder for journalists to protect them.
Fear of lawsuits. Small investigative outlets cannot afford long legal battles over damages. The risk of being sued by a powerful official is enough to make many of them back off on their own, without anyone having to stop them.
SPAK is left isolated. Public support for anti-corruption investigations depends on citizens being able to see what is happening. Without information, the investigations become easier to attack as "political".
The bottom line
In the name of privacy, the proposed law does not mainly protect ordinary citizens.
It protects those who hold power and are under investigation, giving them years of silence, control over the public narrative and a legal weapon against the journalists who investigate them.
The question is not whether the rights of defendants should be protected. They should.
The question is why that protection requires the public to know nothing about investigations into officials for years on end.
Shpërndaje te miqtë
