The moralists demanding blood from SPAK and GJKKO

There are three kinds of moralists trying to keep the failure of the new justice system standing — a system that has failed to bring credible charges and fair trials for all defendants, especially those with a high political profile.

The first kind are the media outlets funded by the same NGO programmes that also fund the public relations of SPAK and GJKKO. They are the crudest of the three, because they never question the charges, and never question the prosecutors’ habit of publicly lynching selected defendants out of personal resentment.

So far, they have defended mass pre-trial detention whenever it suits the government. They attack media that expose procedural violations and scandals in the way SPAK and GJKKO treat detainees, accusing those media of being bought. At the same time, they fall respectfully silent when Berisha, or other opposition figures under investigation, attack SPAK. That, apparently, is not a problem for them.

In other words, they are outraged when Veliaj or Beqaj complain about the courtroom cage — because, like Olsi Dado, they seem to think it is a five-star hotel. They are furious that Mirlinda Karçanaj is even allowed to speak on television, because in their view she should already be in prison. But when opposition figures under investigation insult SPAK and GJKKO, they listen with deference. For them, that somehow does not count as pressure on justice.

This is one of the stalest paid propaganda lines of the moralists of justice reform.

The second moralist is Berisha.

Today, he appeared outside SPAK and said that Altin Dumani has lived for 20 years in a villa owned by his father-in-law, allegedly given to him by an English pastor who has since died. Berisha tried to prove that the villa was not built in 2000, as Dumani has said, because he had a document showing that in 2004 the property was still registered as land.

But the document he showed was, in fact, a formal purchase of the land on paper in 2004. The house may well have been built without a permit by the pastor back in 2000. In informal Albania, that is hardly a shock.

The real issue is different.

When SPAK accuses former senior officials by saying, “your father-in-law’s house is effectively yours,” simply because investigators found a child’s toys there, then SPAK should be ready to apply the same standard to itself. That matters when its own chief has lived for 20 years in his father-in-law’s house while owning two other apartments that he rents out.

That is a moral issue, not a legal one.

Altin Dumani has every right to live for 20 years in his father-in-law’s house. He has every right not only to leave his children’s toys there, but to raise his children there, as long as the house belongs to his wife’s father. No one has the right to suspect him on that basis alone.

But neither does he have the right to suspect others simply because investigators found a grandchild’s toys at the grandmother’s house, without other evidence. Otherwise, he becomes no different from Sali Berisha.

The third group of moralists are those attacking Top Channel for interviewing Mirlinda Karçanaj, and attacking Grida Duma for not grabbing that “thief” by the hair and throwing her to the floor.

It is clear that Karçanaj faces serious legal trouble over what happened at AKSHI. It is also clear that the investigation is moving deeper into the scandals involving subcontractors there.

But how exactly has justice, or public morality, been harmed by allowing an accused person to speak?

Did it influence SPAK? No. If anything, it made SPAK angrier.

Did it influence GJKKO? No. If anything, it may have pushed it even harder.

With better advisers, Karçanaj might not have appeared at all. But that would have been for her own good, not for the public good. When a person under accusation appears in the media, that is a personal decision, usually tied to their own legal and public troubles.

Top Channel, or any other media outlet that gives a microphone to a defendant, does not save that person or cleanse them of the charges, as the moralists claim. If the defendant has convincing arguments that the charges are baseless, then the media has performed a public service. If not, then the defendant has committed public suicide.

But none of that should affect justice.

Justice is supposed to be cold. It should deal only with the law, with the article, and with the letter of that law.

The problem is that our prosecutors and judges are thinking about the media, not the law. That is why they encourage, or at least test, these moralistic campaigns.

If they were acting within the law, they would not need moralistic media, NGOs or gutter portals to lynch their targets for them. They would be seen as respected people of the law, not as sponsors of online hit jobs.

It would serve them better to be only what they are supposed to be: prosecutors and judges.

Originally published in Albanian as: Moralistët që “duan gjak” nga SPAK dhe GJKKO