Pay talks: magistrates reject Rama’s invitation, only the High Court will attend

The High Court, judges’ associations, the General Prosecution and the High Prosecutorial Council have boycotted Prime Minister Edi Rama’s call to jointly discuss a new scheme for calculating magistrates’ salaries.

Rama called the roundtable for today at 12:30, an invitation to which only the head of the High Judicial Council, Ilir Rusi, responded positively.

It was the High Court, led by Sokol Sadushi, who publicly said that as long as the matter is in the hands of the Constitutional Court, discussions have no effect — only after the court delivers a decision.

“Since the invitation of 18 September, an institutional development has occurred that did not exist at that moment and is directly related to the subject of the table. The new salary law has been subjected to the review of the Constitutional Court. This new circumstance affects, in my assessment, both the timing and the content of the dialogue. For a constitutional matter already brought for adjudication, the word belongs to the Constitutional Court. Consequently, the dialogue on this subject can be substantive and effective only after it has spoken,” writes the head of the HJC in his reply.

The same argument was given in response by the Union of Judges of Albania and the Association of Judges.

“However, in the current circumstances, when issues directly related to the constitutional standard of magistrates’ salaries have become the object of a process already initiated before the Constitutional Court, the Association assesses that its participation in an institutional discussion on the same issue before the conclusion of this process would not be appropriate. The constitutional decision is expected to clarify the parameters within which a full and constructive discussion on the mechanism of magistrates’ financial treatment can further develop.”

The associations emphasize that this stance does not close the door to later institutional dialogue between the parties.

“For this reason, the Association considers that the proposed discussion could take place at a later moment, after the relevant constitutional framework is clarified. This stance does not constitute withdrawal from institutional dialogue nor a limitation of our readiness to contribute to discussions aimed at the sustainable improvement of the functioning of the judicial system,” reads the reply of the Association of Judges.