Press statement by Minister of Justice Etilda Gjonaj after cabinet meeting:

Following a complete and comprehensive process of discussions between representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, including also the Prime Minister’s office, the State Police, local and international experts involved in the justice reform, at its today’s meeting the government adopted the ‘Anti-KCK’ package of laws.

Through this package, the fight against organized crime and against all of those who think they can challenge the power of law in this country will strengthen and intensify. The decisions adopted today bring changes to the Anti-Mafia Law, the State Police Law, the Law on the Administration of Seized and Confiscated Assets, and the Criminal Code. All these changes, together with the law “On the status of judges and prosecutors”, are now a decision-making by the Albanian Parliament.

The essential act of the ‘Anti-KCK’ package of laws adopted by the Albanian government today is a normative act enters into force immediately and concerns wealth of those convicted under organized crime charges, participation in criminal organizations and any other criminal and terrorist group, or in trafficking and other serious crimes.

Subject of the ‘Anti-KCK’ package of laws that target assets and proceeds of crime are also all individuals who, although being accused of committing serious crimes or involvement in organized crime activities and terrorism, because of the rotten and corruption-riddled justice system, were never convicted and move freely today.

All these individuals, whether convicted or charged with the categories of crimes I just mentioned, will have to prove that their homes, businesses, land, bank accounts, vehicles owned by them, or even by their families, and wealth are created through work and not through illicit and unjustified activity. The burden of proof will rest on them to justify the legality of their wealth.

Subject of this package are also all individuals who have transferred their assets to third parties in a bid to conceal source of their illegally obtained wealth.

Under this normative act, these types of transfers and transactions will be cancelled and deemed invalid.

Persons who have thought they would conceal and save their wealth through resorting to these actions will be held accountable and will have to justify every single penny.

The adopted normative act will provide the State Police, the Special Prosecution Office, SPAK, and the Special Courts with the appropriate legal tools and framework to fight organized crime in the most efficient possible way.

The rest of the package targets corrupt judges and prosecutors, who are challenging the state, the law and whole society by making rulings like the one issued by Kruja court, which, although the last one in line, is unfortunately not the only one.

With this package, the new justice bodies will be provided with new effective mechanisms to punish any judges and prosecutors and all challengers of the law and the values of the society, who abuse for personal and corrupt interests as they spend their last days before undergoing vetting.