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Former Serious Crimes Prosecutor and lawyer Eugen Beci, commenting on the meeting of the joint panels of the Supreme Court on pre-trial detention, expressed doubts about the intentions of the initiators.
Beçi stated that the most transparent path would be legal changes to the Criminal Procedure Code, but a decision is being sought that affects the sentencing of senior officials accused of corruption.
He acknowledges that the Supreme Court has the right to intervene with a unifying decision, but emphasizes three elements that must be tested: the lack of alternatives to "prison arrest", the assessment of risk based on concrete circumstances, and the use of evidence.
According to Beçi, the problem lies in the fact that the burden of proof is left to the defendant and that after 2021, requests for security measures have become a "cliché", treating different cases the same way.
" The unifying decision of 2011 was not implemented in practice in court proceedings. You mean that he is under arrest in prison, that he is not under house arrest, why is he not under financial guarantee, that is, with concrete evidence, not a standard formula. That decision had another problem, that the burden of proof is on the defense, more precisely the defendant.
The Supreme Court was right to intervene with a unifying decision. This decision seeks to determine three essential elements and it remains to be seen whether they will be reflected in the new decision and whether the court will pass this test. First, the lack of alternatives, why the measure of 'prison arrest' is necessarily needed and why other lighter measures are not applied. Second, the risk should not be assessed only by the criminal offense, but also by other concrete circumstances. Concrete evidence is needed. The decision says that the burden of proof is on the defendant, so take me as a defendant but prove me whether I am guilty or innocent. The Supreme Court was right to make a unifying decision. In Albanian courts after 2021, the requests for the imposition of security measures are clichés: there is a risk of departure, of avoidance and the same for everyone, both those for driving or driving license and those for murder. You must have accurate and complete evidence. But it is not up to Strasbourg standards.
All these difficulties have required that detention be the last resort. Does the latest decision of the Supreme Court violate legal certainty, because we had a unifying decision from 2011 and one court read it, another did not. If we want a change, the legal change must be made, because it provides legal certainty. Even in the Code of Criminal Procedure, article 228 et seq., the fact that prison arrest and other alternatives are determined, by not leaving a unifying decision, gives right to both Andi, who is a cleaner, and Eugen, who is a mayor. If you leave it alone with a unifying decision, a court will see it differently for Andi and differently for Eugeni and this element makes you doubt the fact that why, if you are so concerned about freedoms and human rights, why don't you make a more transparent process than that of legal changes to the Criminal Procedure Code, but go with the easier path, where a unifying decision is required? If you don't do it with legal changes, it leaves room only for subjectivity. Will we need a unifying decision in this campaign of arrests of high-ranking officials that is used for some and not for others?
"The Supreme Court does not accept any recourse from the districts. Now do you remember? The Supreme Court should have intervened with concrete cases that the courts have abused, but today, without having statistics, it leads and makes the same decision ," said Beçi.
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