Rama keeps up criticism over judges’ salaries: “A judge can never speak like that”

Prime Minister Edi Rama has further hardened his tone in the debate over judges’ salaries and the way their demanded raise is implemented.

In another reaction on platform X, Rama rejected the claim that judges can directly take from the State Treasury the funds related to their salaries, calling it an approach incompatible with how the state functions.

“No, a judge can never speak like that!” Rama wrote, adding that “the world has never seen judges say we will take the money ourselves from the state treasury because it is ours.”

The prime minister also considers particularly problematic the argument that the funds were created by the judges’ own work.

According to him, such logic could also be applied by customs officers, tax officials, police and inspectors, who could demand the funds they have collected 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?” Rama said.

The prime minister’s reaction:

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.

The prime minister also dwells on the difference between judges’ salaries and other professions in the public sector. He argues that if the demanded raise were accepted without a new legal decision, an entry-level judge would earn 3.8 times more than a teacher, doctor or soldier, or a salary 280 percent higher.

This is Rama’s latest reaction in the context of the recent clash over magistrates’ salaries. In recent days, the prime minister has published several reactions opposing the way the salary raise is being demanded and arguing that State Treasury funds cannot be made available through a decision by the judicial branch.

Rama has insisted that any change to judges’ salaries must be made through legal procedures and Parliament’s decision-making.

The debate has escalated following the Administrative Court’s decision on implementing the salary raise for magistrates, while the government and representatives of the judicial system hold differing views on how the decision should be implemented and on its financial effects.