FLASH
Shkruar nga Lutfi Dervishi
In Albania under the dictatorship, there was no need for glass...
There's a simple way to understand a justice system: look at where it places the defendant. At the side of the lawyer, or behind glass like a "dangerous animal."
Even at the Nuremberg Trials, the most accused people of the century, the leaders of Nazism, were not in the cage.
They were surrounded by guards, with headphones in their ears, under maximum surveillance. But not in a cage. Because even there, in a trial that came after a world war, with tens of millions of victims, a symbolic choice was made: justice must appear to be justice, not directed revenge.
In the dictatorship's Albania, there was no need for glass. The decision was given before the session began. The defendant stood, in front of the microphone, with a hall that unfortunately also applauded. It was a theater with a visible direction. But without a cage.
Today, the cage in the courtroom is made of glass. Clean, transparent, almost aesthetic. A kind of legal aquarium where the defendant is exposed as a potential danger, not as a subject of rights.
Since 2005, the US Supreme Court has officially banned it as “a clear symbol against the presumption of guilt and a violation of the confidential communication of the defendant with the lawyer.” In US courtrooms, the defendant sits next to the lawyer without any physical barrier.
The American model is followed in all Scandinavian countries. The European Court of Human Rights tolerates it only as an exception, not as a rule. France reserves it for terrorism. Russia is criticized for using it for everyone.
We have made the glass part of the aesthetics of the reform, forgetting that transparency should be in the decision-making, not in the walls of the cage. We have even started a discussion about who has the competence. The court says it is not my competence. The prisons say it is a security issue. The law says the defendant is free during the trial. The reality: "put them in the cage and we continue because we don't have time".
The Albanian Helsinki Committee calls this a serious violation. And it is right. Because Article 344 is not a suggestion, it is a rule. The defendant is not an object to be protected, but a subject to be protected.
In the case of Svinarenko and Slyadnev v. Russia, Strasbourg clearly stated that the cage is degrading treatment and violates due process.
It doesn't matter if it's made of iron or glass. The problem is not the material, but the message it conveys. At Nuremberg, for crimes against humanity, there was no cage.
In Albania, for cases that are still being discussed in court, we have cages as a security standard. It's not just a matter of architecture or prison security; it's a matter of mentality.
When Strasbourg says that a cage, whether made of iron or glass, is degrading treatment, it is not protecting the individual, but rather the integrity of the court itself.
If in Tirana we still need an 'aquarium' to separate justice from man, then the first convict in that hall is the presumption of innocence itself. A system that needs glass to feel safe shows that it is more afraid of freedom than of crime.
Albanistan hesapi! Pellazge pra mo! Civilizimi me i vjeter i Europes. Nje M!