Rama: The system is fighting corruption — “the PS and I gave justice its independence”

Prime Minister Edi Rama said the justice reform has produced a justice system that, in his words, acts independently of political power. Rama called the reform his and the Socialist Party’s achievement — a process through which political power handed “the sword of justice” to a liberated and independent judiciary.

“The independence of justice did not fall from the sky; neither time, nor the U.S., nor Europe brought it. They helped, but without us they would have made a mess of it. The independence of justice was not brought by the crows and ravens screaming ‘corruption’ and looking at SPAK as a weapon against me — me, whom they have defeated and defeat in every election whenever it crosses their minds that they have cornered me and dug my grave. It is not their defeat that keeps me awake at night, nor the puffing of their henhouse. This is about what is happening, about corruption and justice. The time when political power and impunity were one and the same will never return. That time is gone because the PS and I waded into the sea on foot and took on the deepest and most painful reform — the act of handing the sword of justice from the hands of political power into the hands of a liberated and independent justice. I did it — not because I was naive, nor because I did not know it would demand heads, but because that great political sacrifice was mine, ours, to bear. Today, for the first time in the history of the Albanian state, it is the system itself that is showing a capacity for self-cleansing it has never had. That is a great achievement, the autopsy of which I will not negotiate with anyone,” Rama said.

According to Rama, the fact that justice is touching ministers, directors and mayors shows it acts independently of political power.

“In no country drowned in corruption is there a frontal fight against corruption. In no drowned country does the prosecution investigate power itself instead of protecting it. In no country does justice touch ministers, directors, mayors — it just sits and waits for power’s order to strike opponents. We have all lived in the country drowned in corruption, where the opposition leader was jailed by order from above, where protesters were killed with bullets paid for by taxpayers, where prosecution summonses for state murders in the middle of the boulevard became toilet paper in the prime minister’s office as he denigrated the prosecutor, where the tax director stayed in office from house arrest and 26 innocents killed in the explosion of a corrupt Defence Ministry project were treated as victims of a natural disaster. Those four killed on the boulevard have never received justice. Corruption today faces a different system, where bodies are developing that investigate in full freedom and independence. Until yesterday corruption was the system; today the system is fighting corruption — that is the epochal change. The system’s self-cleansing is a long-awaited development in the organisation of the state, after an agony as long as the history of the Albanian state. After an agony as long as the history of the Albanian state, the state’s organism is gaining immunity from the old diseases and, when this noisy, filthy and painful phase has passed, when the names, secrets, drools, snorts and squeals of the media stalls have faded, when the smoke of the digital mirrors has dispersed and the dust of the Justice Reform construction site has settled, then everyone will see that these developments are a vital part of the irreversible radical change Albania is undergoing today. Today I have returned to Albania, but Albania will not turn back. No one and nothing will stop it, will stop us, will stop me,” Rama said.