Justice Demands Justice… for Its Own Paycheck!

By Filip Çakuli

Not even the righteous is allowed to be a judge in his own case… (Pascal)

Judges are demanding a pay raise.

Don’t be alarmed. This is no news from some country where the judge rides a bicycle to work, eats bread and cheese for lunch and at the end of the month checks whether he has money left for the lights.

This is a country where judges’ salaries are among the highest in the public sector, but, apparently, justice cannot be done on an empty stomach. And the empty stomach, in this case, is a legal concept that begins somewhere near the salary of the President and the Prime Minister.

But the most beautiful part is not the demand.

The artistic part is that the matter of judges’ salaries ends up… in court.

So the judge demands a pay raise and the judge will examine whether the judge deserves a pay raise.

Here Montesquieu would have closed the book.

(Montesquieu also defines the demand for the separation of powers as principle 7 of the state’s internal construction, whose purpose is to sideline arbitrary actions by individuals or groups)

We trust in impartiality. So much trust that if I were taken to court to decide whether my salary should be doubled, I would try to be completely objective.

I would consult the Constitution.

Then, after a deep legal reflection of about seven seconds, I would decide:

The salary shall be doubled. The decision is final.

I would even add retroactivity.

Because justice is delayed, but the salary is not.

Slow justice and fast pay

The Albanian citizen can wait years for a court process.

Then a justice reform.

Then a reform of the justice reform.

And one day, after twenty years, justice triumphs.

The decision is inherited by the heirs.

In Albania you can inherit the house, the land, the debts and, with a little patience, even grandpa’s verdict.

Our justice is generational justice.

Trials drag on and take three generations to finish. Martin Luther King put it well: justice delayed is justice denied.

The father starts the trial, the son continues it, and the grandson gets the verdict.

That’s why the judge’s salary must be good. It’s a big responsibility: he must know three generations of the same family.

The wicked people and the evil tongues

They say that to win a trial you need to know someone.

They say that sometimes you even need to pay.

We don’t believe rumors.

But the Albanian is a strange people: when he loses the trial, he doubts the judge; when he wins, he says justice won.

Thus a new branch of Albanian jurisprudence has been created: the folk mathematics of court decisions.

However, courts cannot judge on rumors.

Or at least that’s what the Code says.

Because the citizen has also formed another bad impression: that sometimes we first put the person inside and then have time to look for evidence.

Evidence → investigation → trial → conviction.

The Albanian folk version is perceived like this:

Put him inside → investigate → search → search again → extend the deadline → maybe some evidence turns up.

Justice is not done in haste.

Except when it comes to justice’s paycheck.

We also carried out the Justice Reform.

We were told we would have more independent, more professional judges and a system that would restore the citizen’s trust.

Especially the judges’ trust that they deserve a higher salary.

A peasant between two judges is like a fish between two cats, as one American president, Benjamin Franklin, put it. Poor thing, he moves neither forward nor backward.

Meanwhile the citizen keeps waiting in the corridor.

— But I opened my case in 2011!

— Exactly. Don’t be impatient. Justice takes time.

— And the pay raise demand?

Because delayed justice can cost the citizen his property, his freedom, his business or twenty years of life.

Whereas a delayed judge’s salary endangers the foundations of the rule of law.

Therefore I propose creating a new institution:

The Special Court for the Protection of the Judge’s Salary.

Its members shall be judges.

“In the name of the Republic, the Republic is obliged to raise the salaries of those who just made this decision.”

No one can say it’s a one-sided decision.

All judges have been heard.

We could even create the Salary Appeals Court.

If the raise turns out to be only 20 percent, file an appeal:

— The constitutional dignity of the judge has been violated.

— Proportionality has not been respected.

— Now we are approaching European standards.

And if the government complains it has no money?

Then let it present evidence.

Until it finds it, we can put it in pretrial detention.

Court decisions begin with a grand formula:

“In the name of the Republic…”

It used to be said “in the name of the people” too.

The people — those earning 400, 500 or 600 euros a month — might naively ask:

Because the people are not jurists.

He takes leave from work for the hearing.

He learns the hearing has been postponed.

And after twenty years he gets the verdict.

While justice continues, independent, solemn, with the demand for a higher salary in hand.

Because a state without justice cannot exist.

But, as it seems, neither can justice exist without salary indexation.

And now only one question remains:

Who will judge the judges’ demand?

And who will review the decision?

And what if the state disagrees?

And so the circle closes perfectly.

In Albanian justice you can wait twenty years to get your property back.

But when justice demands raising its own salary, that’s a whole different matter.

Because justice may be delayed.

And I want to close with a saying by Shout, the well-known English writer: 100 free criminals do less harm than one bad judge…