Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the graduation ceremony of students of the Faculty of Law

“Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all”. I don’t think that expression said 2.500 years ago by Aristotle can find a better place, a more appropriate time than the Albania of this time, to have a proper context.

On the other hand, Faik Konica used to say: “Justice belongs to the field of dreams”, which is certainly the motivation that made each of you walk through the door of the Faculty of Law, and also your parents wait anxiously for their son or daughter walk out the door of the Faculty with such a big dream.

Therefore, let me remind you today that if you’re here at the end of a road that is only the end to embark on the road of confrontation between dream and reality, this is dedicated in the first place to those who are with you today, your mothers and fathers to whom I want to wish wholeheartedly that their sons and daughters become the embodiment of what they have dreamed of when they took them to the door of the Faculty of Law, and supported them in this big dream.

Congratulations on their courage to all parents who embarked on this tremendous undertaking, for I would not have the courage to take my son or daughter to law school as I do not think that there is another field in Albania where the gap between dream and reality is so large. I do not think that graduates of other fields in Albania overcome obstacles and difficulties like those which law graduates go through. Therefore, be prepared for you haven’t seen even in your worst dreams what you are going to see.

I don’t mean to discourage you, I simply want to share with you what I feel when I think about justice in this country, when I see what happens, how it happens and who makes it happen. I find it rather an extraordinary collision between a reality taken hostage by the most corrupt part of our society, and a dream that has prepared you to face this reality today.

The truth is that if you look at those attending this faculty – not all those who have studied law in Albania, but in this Faculty, – it is impressive to see that they are the best. You were the best when you came here, and today you are the best product that this society can deliver through this faculty, in view of man united in law and justice, as the best animal.

On the other hand, you are today at an unforgettable moment of your life, which is also historical for Albania, for your emerging in the battlefield coincides with a time when a great effort is being made in order to make room for merit in this battlefield, in the justice system, and to provide equal opportunities, so that the best of the best will have in their hands the gavel that has hit a lot of heads and violated a lot of rights in the last 25 years. With that gavel you can try to end an era, and to transform that gavel into an instrument that delivers justice rather than the instrument that completes a process where justice is only a commodity that is sold to the largest bidder.

I think we’ve done a good job by removing from your path at least some of your peers who could have been today unfairly by your side, in an attempt where neither competition nor merit are worth a penny. Those who earned law degrees through all sort of ways – not in this Faculty, but somewhere else – and with those degrees have more often than rarely hindered the path of those who graduated before you from this faculty over the years. They’ve hindered their path so much and so often, for in these 25 years Albania delivered the highest number of lawyers per square kilometre in the world.

I used to take a taxi at night once a month and tell the taxi driver: “Now, go on and just talk”. I would take a one-hour tour of Tirana at 1 or 2 am. The taxi driver would give me an overview of the situation for there is no better barometer than someone in whose taxi have travelled all sort of people telling all kinds of stories. The last trips became pretty concerning to me, because all of the taxi drivers were lawyers. When I decided to close the series of travels, one of them told me” “Boss, it’s on me today”, “Why?” I asked. “Because I had my master’s in law”, he replied. “And how could you make it to get a master”, I continued, “for you work a lot?” And his answer was: “Just like everybody else. I arranged things with the owner of the university. I drove his children to school every morning. Sometimes, I have even driven his wife when she needed to go somewhere, and he couldn’t drive her.” “And what you are going to do after your master’s?” “There’s this PGD”, he tod, “but I’m not sure”. I don’t know if he has earned his “PgD”, but the fact is that today nobody can earn anymore this sort of masters’ or PgDs.

While this belongs to the past, dealing with the system will not be for you like you imagine it. I hope very much that thanks to you, and also thanks to many others who graduated before you from this faculty in the past – and definitely thanks to many people here behind me who have made an important contribution to the process of justice reform – we will succeed in making the vetting of judges and prosecutors, that will not only clean the system but will create also a lot of jobs for you, for how can you be employed if vacancies are considered an “occupied land” by those who earned their degree in the shadow of the poplars along the road to the beach?

You are young, but your parents know it, so I’m not dwelling into explaining what the poplars are. Ask your parents, and they will tell you that once upon a time some people became lawyers after spending 6 months at the poplars, and today the system is full of these “poplars’ people”. But there are not just the “poplars”, there are also some oaks and magnificent plane trees that prevent justice from delivering justice.

The vetting process is crucial to open a path that will be long because you know better than I that it is not enough to be able to either write or read well a law. You must have inside of you the power of that dream, as Konica says, that makes you apply the law when you have in your hand the judge’s gavel.

I think you have heard that Albania has received a positive recommendation from the European Commission to open negotiations, a station which couldn’t even be imagined three years ago because three years ago Albania was a country that was refused the status of candidate country for three consecutive years, a status that let’s say is only half a symbolic moment that paves the way to the other process.

We received the recommendation, but recommendation to open negotiations was granted with what our European friends call an agreed premise. The law on the vetting, the enforcement of the law on the vetting, the cleaning of the system from corrupt judges and prosecutors, and the start of the further implementation of those 7 laws which we have already voted in parliament. I would like to share with you my fear that this is not going to be easy, I am even very afraid that this is going to be more than hard for the Constitutional Court not to hinder the law and not to breach it, at a point where:

a- the breached law becomes a protection for corrupt judges and prosecutors

b- the breached law becomes an obstacle for Albania to launch negotiations with the EU

Who with a clear mind and a proper heart would do such a thing to their country? That’s who! Those who are terrified of the vetting. Those who are terrified of the idea that the system must be passed on to the best, and become first of all a functioning system for the best, so that through the best it can then function for average people. In Kosovo, a country that cannot be considered a perfected model of the European justice, the vetting deleted 35% of the corps.

Do you know how much do citizens of Kosovo assess their justice system? It is 6 or 7. And you know how much do citizens of Albania assess their justice system? It is 1 or 2. So, on a scale from 1 to 10 citizens of Kosovo say 6, 7, which is quite good compared to the assessment given by Albanians, who say 1 or 2. X is missing. It’s that X that has been keeping hostage this country for 25 years, and has prevented it from developing properly because without a just justice system, all the rest is relative and every effort, in every area, is relativized.

In its latest report on regional economies, the IMF says in black and white that 2 reforms that can accelerate economic growth in Albania are the justice reform and the property reform. We received a positive opinion of the Venice Commission on property reform. But you know what? I haven’t said this anywhere else, and I’m going to say it here. It wasn’t enough for the Constitutional Court, and the Constitutional Court has intervened. Let’s see what they’re going to do when they read how it has intervened in contradiction with the opinion of the Venice Commission, from where we are waiting also for the opinion on the vetting. As you can see, I’m preparing you for what is ahead of you. Once last thing. “Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens”, Plato said.

I hope, wish and encourage with all my heart each of you to have in your hearts and souls, in the main square, the home of justice.

Thank you very much!