Albania MPs to Vote on 'Decriminalising Politics'

(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) The Albanian parliament will vote in December on whether to adopt a new law excluding people with criminal convictions from holding public office.
The proposed law referred to as the ‘decriminalisation law’ will permanently ban people who have been convicted of serious offences including murder rape and genocide from appointment or election to state institutions.

If passed all MPs local politicians government officials civil servants and members of the military and police forces will be subject to criminal background checks.

The vote was scheduled after the two main government coalition members the Socialist and Democratic parties agreed on Monday to amend the constitution so the proposed law can be adopted. The deal was reached after several months of negotiations.

“This law will not only guarantee that people with criminal records stay out of parliament it will also stop MPs from making strong [sometimes unfounded] allegations against each other in this important institution. From now on only the law will decide if high-ranking officials have a criminal past or not” Taulant Balla vice-chair of the cross-party parliamentary commission set up to draft the new legislation told the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network BIRN.

In addition to permanently barring people with serious convictions the new law will impose minimum time periods before those convicted of lesser offences can assume office.

An official found guilty of corruption would be banned from holding public office for 20 years while those convicted of offences resulting in jail terms of two years or under will be barred for 10 years.

Albanians who are facing trial or are subject to international arrest warrants would also be barred.

MPs with criminal records exposed

The proposed law is the result ofa series of political scandalsin which several MPs were exposed by the media and opposition party members as either having convictions or facing charges including for serious offences.

Socialist MP Arben Ndokaresigned in October after his previous conviction for human trafficking by an Italian court was made public.

Belgian prosecutors have accusedMark Frroku a Christian Democratic Party MP ofmurdering another Albanian in Brussels in 1999. The victim was allegedly blackmailing a woman who had been exploited by a prostitution ring. An Albanian court is considering Belgium’s request for Frroku's extradition. Frroku has denied any wrongdoing and described the charges against him as politically motivated.

The Albanian government has also come under increasing pressure from the international community to pass legislation barring people with criminal records from public office.

Donald Lu the US ambassador to Tirana has frequently expressed concerns that the government has failed to stop those with criminal pasts from becoming members of parliament or being appointed as state officials.

However some observers are not convinced the new law will clean up Albanian politics.

Neritan Sejamini media analyst and political sciences lecturer at Tirana University told BIRN that this law alone cannot guarantee that political life in Albania will be entirely free from influence from those with criminal records.

“This law touches just some of the symptoms of Albania politics but it doesn’t cure the disease. The whole political system in the country is dominated by autocracy corruption and criminality and even if we are not going to have any more MPs with criminal records the criminals outside parliament will influence them” he said.