Rama: It is a scandal that a judge says salaries are owed to them because “we collected them ourselves”

Prime Minister Edi Rama reacted to the debate over judges’ salaries, commenting on a statement by judge Engert Pëllumbi. In a post on the social network X, Rama shared Pëllumbi’s statement, according to which the funds that the GJKKO confiscates every year from organized crime could be used for raising judges’ salaries.

Rama called this stance inappropriate for a judge, arguing that money collected by the state belongs to the state treasury and cannot be considered revenue that an institution can take directly for its own salaries.

“The world has never seen judges say we will take the money ourselves from the state treasury because it is ours,” Rama wrote, calling the statement “a scandal in itself” for what he considers a lack of understanding of how the state functions.

The prime minister compared the situation with a hypothetical scenario in which customs officers, tax officials, police and inspectors would demand that the money they collect from taxes and fines be given to them as salaries.

According to Rama, such an approach would raise the question of what would then remain for teachers, doctors, soldiers and other public administration employees, who are paid from the state treasury.

THE PRIME MINISTER’S FULL POST

No, a judge can never speak like that!

The world has never seen judges say we will take the money ourselves from the state treasury because it is ours, and this “we collected it ourselves” is a scandal in itself for the chilling level of ignorance about how the state functions.

Imagine if customs officers and tax officials, police and inspectors stood up and said we want the money we collected ourselves into the state treasury from taxes and fines!

What would then remain for teachers, doctors, soldiers and countless others who perform thousands of duties for the state, for which they are paid from the treasury?

And if this raise demanded without a law were accepted as a done deal, comparatively with a teacher, a doctor, a soldier, an entry-level judge would earn 3.8 times more, or a salary 280% higher. Others above you cannot even imagine how much more.