{"id":343219,"date":"2025-08-14T06:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T06:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343219\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T06:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T06:55:11","slug":"why-is-albania-criminalising-mockery-yet-going-easy-on-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343219\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Albania criminalising ‘mockery’ yet going easy on corruption?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Albanian government recently introduced a draft proposal<\/a> to amend the country\u2019s criminal code, framing it as part of the broader justice reform agenda launched in 2016, which is supposed to advance Albania\u2019s European Union (EU) integration process. <\/p>\n

However, rather than promoting democratic accountability or aligning Albania with European legal standards, the proposed changes represent an increasingly authoritarian drift<\/a> by a regime intent on consolidating its power.<\/p>\n

The new proposal introduces draconian restrictions on freedom of expression. <\/p>\n

Article 235, titled Desecration of the Republic and its Symbols, criminalises so-called \u201cmockery\u201d or ridicule of high state officials \u2014 including the prime minister, president, and ministers \u2014 with penalties of up to three years in prison. <\/p>\n

The term \u201cdesecration,\u201d as legally defined in the article, is deliberately vague, leaving it open to interpretation and prone to abuse \u2014 enabling arbitrary and politically motivated prosecutions of journalists, activists, and citizens critical of the regime. <\/p>\n

This provision alone signals a dangerous regression in democratic standards \u2014 but it is only one of many.<\/p>\n

Articles 865 (Defamation), 863 (Insult), and 536 (Influencing Judicial Independence) exacerbate the assault on freedom of speech and judicial oversight. <\/p>\n

According to the Safe Journalists Network (SJN), the Association of Journalists of Albania, and civil society actors<\/a>, these articles introduce vague and overly broad language while imposing disproportionate penalties. <\/p>\n

Article 865 increases criminal liability for defamation, particularly in cases involving media or online content, and eliminates the requirement to prove knowledge of falsehood \u2014 effectively turning critical reporting into a punishable offence. <\/p>\n

Article 863 uses ambiguous concepts such as \u201cdisturbing public opinion\u201d and \u201coffending good practices,\u201d allowing for selective enforcement against opposition voices. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Article 536 criminalises public commentary on judicial proceedings, severely limiting journalists\u2019 and civil society\u2019s role as watchdogs, especially when proceedings involve high-profile political actors.<\/p>\n

These measures directly contradict Albania\u2019s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), particularly Article 10, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression. <\/p>\n

They also breach Council of Europe Recommendation Rec(2003)13<\/a>, which affirms the media\u2019s right to report on judicial processes, and Resolution 1577 (2007), which urges member states to fully decriminalize defamation. <\/p>\n

Moreover, they ignore established case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which upholds the public\u2019s right to receive information on matters of political and judicial significance, and which demands a higher threshold of tolerance from public officials in democratic societies.<\/p>\n

Criminalise dissent, go easy on corruption<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the draft reveals a concerning dual nature: while it cracks down on dissent \u2014 criminaliaing satire, criticism, and investigative journalism \u2014 it simultaneously proposes reduced penalties for corruption offenses committed by high-ranking officials<\/a>. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the draft creates conditions for a de facto amnesty for powerful political figures, from which some currently under investigation or indictment \u2014 including former prime minister Sali Berisha, former president Ilir Meta, and the mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj \u2014 could directly benefit.<\/p>\n

As investigated<\/a> by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network<\/a> (BIRN) in Albania, lowering the penalty for corruption committed by high officials and equating it with offences committed by lower-ranking officials, the draft legislation significantly shortens the statute of limitations for this category of crime. <\/p>\n

Principally, under the criminal code, the statute of limitations \u2014 based on the severity of the offence \u2014 sets a time frame beyond which criminal acts can no longer be prosecuted. <\/p>\n

Reducing the gravity of the offence through lighter penalties directly reduces the time window for legal accountability. <\/p>\n

As a result, the proposed change could lead to the effective amnesty of high-ranking officials currently under investigation or indictment, allowing them to evade justice simply by running out the time. <\/p>\n

If adopted by parliament, this would not only undermine efforts to combat high-level corruption, but also erode public trust in the rule of law and the integrity of the justice system.<\/p>\n

Following the 11 May 2025 parliamentary elections<\/a>, which according to international observers<\/a> were marred by serious irregularities \u2014 including voter intimidation, manipulation of the electoral process, misuse of public resources, and state interference in the media \u2014 the ruling Socialist Party of Albania (SP) under the leadership of prime minister Edi Rama, in power since 2013, secured 52.15 percent of the national vote<\/a> or 83 out of 140 parliamentary seats. <\/p>\n

Holding a super majority, the SP wields extensive legislative authority, including the power to enact constitutional changes without the need for opposition backing.<\/p>\n

Currently, the historic opposition parties \u2014 such as the Democratic Party (PD) and the Freedom Party (PL) \u2014 proven equally authoritarian as the ruling SP and also operating as cartel-parties \u2014 have been politically dismantled. <\/p>\n

The new opposition forces that have emerged from civil society structures such as the Together Movement<\/a> or Hashtag Initiative<\/a> are weak and fragmented, whereas civic space has been steadily shrinking for the past years, and most media remain effectively captured by the regime. <\/p>\n

Just recently, on 9 August, the regime unlawfully shut down News24<\/a>, one of the country\u2019s major opposition TV stations, by cutting its electricity and deploying police forces to surround the building and halt its broadcast.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop of institutional erosion and democratic backsliding, the responsibility to safeguard democratic integrity in Albania falls on the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The draft criminal code represents a direct assault on principles of democratic governance, rule of law, and freedom of expression, values that Albania is obligated to uphold under its EU accession commitments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As an EU candidate country, Albania is bound by the EU\u2019s rule of law conditionality benchmarks. The EU thus not only has the political and moral responsibility, but also the leverage to intervene \u2014 by conditioning progress on Albania\u2019s accession path and demanding the annulment of any legal or policy measures that contravene EU principles and international democratic standards, as enshrined in the conventions Albania has ratified.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead of desperately expediting an EU integration process that appears largely formal and lacking substantive adherence to core EU values, it is perhaps time for the EU\u2019s commitment to democratic principles to be matched by concrete action. <\/p>\n

This means halting performative integration, ending the appeasement of ‘stabilitocratic’ regional autocrats like Edi Rama in the Balkans, and confronting the entrenchment of authoritarianism cloaked in superficial reforms and fa\u00e7ades of progress.<\/p>\n

This year, we turn 25 and are looking for 2,500 new supporting members to take their stake in EU democracy.\u00a0<\/strong><\/b>A functioning EU relies on a well-informed public \u2013 you.<\/strong><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Albanian government recently introduced a draft proposal to amend the country\u2019s criminal code, framing it as part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699],"class_list":{"0":"post-343219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115025813445133710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}