Draft on Magistrates’ Salaries: Prosecution General Opposes the SP Proposal

The Prosecution General has addressed the Albanian Parliament with an official position opposing the draft to increase the reference salary for magistrates by 2%. The draft proposed by the Socialist Party is expected to go to a vote in Parliament tomorrow despite being opposed by all justice actors invited for hearings in the Laws Committee.

According to the Prosecution General, this bill does not guarantee the full implementation of the Constitutional Court’s decision on this matter and creates disparities between different levels of courts and prosecutions.

“In the absence of a formal draft officially submitted for consultation, based on the content of the bill published in July 2026 on the Parliament’s official website, as well as on the public discussions held, we assess that the bill ‘On some additions and amendments to law no. 96/2016 ‘On the status of judges and prosecutors in the Republic of Albania”, in principle does not guarantee the full and effective implementation of Decision no. 15, dated 17/02/2026 of the Constitutional Court and the constitutional standards set therein. This bill creates unjustified and non-harmonious disparities between different levels of courts and prosecutions.”

We recall that on February 17 of this year, the Constitutional Court accepted the request of the Union of Judges of Albania, which opposed the law on magistrates’ salaries, and declared unconstitutional several provisions of this law adopted in 2023, which changed the formula for calculating judges’ and prosecutors’ salaries.

With the 2023 legal amendments, judges’ salaries were calculated as 0.36 of the salary of the President of the Republic. The Constitutional Court said this was a hidden and illegal reduction and tasked Parliament with intervening to regulate the legal gap. The only action taken was the submission to Parliament of a proposed new formula that would raise the salary from 0.36% of the president’s to 0.38%.

In the absence of Parliament’s intervention, the High Judicial Council and the High Prosecutorial Council decided to implement the Constitutional Court’s decision by raising the magistrates’ reference salary from 156,800 to 222,425 lekë, as well as preserving the 14,000-lekë supplement for the qualification level.