The September of Justice

By Mirjon Brahimllari

September is a very important month in the history of the formation of the state, justice and democracy in the United States of America.

On September 17, 1787 the American Constitution was signed (Constitution Day), with the principles of limiting power and placing justice at the foundation of the constitutional order. But the Founding Fathers of America did not leave justice as merely a constitutional promise.

On September 17, 1787 they placed justice at the foundation of the Constitution, on September 24, 1789 Congress approved the Judiciary Act with which the architecture of the judiciary was built, and on September 25, 1789 the Bill of Rights was approved, through which concrete limits were set on power. The Founding Fathers knew that justice is not protected by words alone; it requires institutions to protect it. Not for nothing did one of them, Alexander Hamilton, say that ‘The first duty of society is justice.’

The lesson of the American September is that justice is not left to the mercy of power. The Constitution sets the limit, the judiciary guards the limit, and the law protects the citizen when power tries to cross it. History teaches us that the independence of justice is not a privilege of judges, but a protective mechanism of the citizen against power.

A state can survive without many things, but without justice, it loses the reason for which it exists. Aristotle says that man, when in his best state, is the noblest of beings; separated from law and justice, he becomes the worst.

About 250 years later, also in September, and, as it happens, also on September 17, the day of the American Constitution, the counterparts of the Founding Fathers of America in the most pro-American state on the planet are preparing to approve by law the salaries of Albanian magistrates, in implementation of the Constitutional Court’s decision — although outside the deadline foreseen by this decision and in all likelihood in violation of the principles and determinations that this very decision foresaw.

The Albanian counterparts of the Founding Fathers, more than 10 years ago, after tearing and tormenting Albanian justice, anathematizing it in the eyes of the public and even turning it into public enemy no. 1 in the country, have returned once again to the old tune. It seems it has become a road that every decade, or whenever there is some event or situation not comfortable for power, the justice system is found, as cannon fodder, to entertain the masses. They changed the law, twice in two years, lowering the salary of magistrates, although it is the only salary protected in the Constitution and the only salary that cannot be touched by anyone.

Indeed, some of the principles of the United Nations go even further, since not only can the lowering or touching of a magistrate’s salary not come to the mind of other powers, but even the raising of their salary cannot remain in the hands of the legislative and executive. After the magistrates turned to the Constitutional Court and waited several years, until with its decision the violation of the Constitution was stopped, having ascertained the unjust lowering of the magistrates’ salary, the old tune began, trumpeting everywhere that magistrates want a salary increase, want more money, are smashing the state treasury, public money is leaving, the salaries of the judiciary are approved by the legislature and sometimes even by the executive alone.

This behavior the people call repeated propaganda with the aim of delegitimizing the judicial power.

But it is clear, for those who have eyes and ears to see and hear, a heart and mind to feel and understand, that magistrates do not demand a salary increase, but demand dignity, respect and support to fulfill the mission the Constitution has charged them with and for which they, at the outset, were sworn.

Magistrates demand what the Founding Fathers foresaw in golden letters in the American Constitution 250 years ago, Checks and Balances, which at its core has the independence of the judicial power. No power is above another and none is below another. All are under the Constitution.

Meanwhile half of September is passing and the justice system finds itself facing the absurd and unprecedented fact where the salaries of the entire system are blocked by order of the Anteroom of the Secretary General of the Ministry of Finance — (the Founding Fathers would perhaps turn in their graves). It may be unbelievable how such an order, of the ‘Anteroom’, has been immediately and blindly implemented by all branches of the Republic’s treasury, thus paralyzing one of the state’s 3 powers, but it seems that with us, the anteroom of power is the corridor where the law loses its voice and the order gains power.

If the salary of a judge can be blocked by an office of the executive power, then the independence of the judge may exist in the Constitution, but this kind of independence is put into question even by a treasury branch or by an anteroom.

This story of the Anteroom recalls the saying of Apelles, one of the most famous painters of ancient Greece, ‘Cobbler, not above the sandal.’ And since we are with painters, perhaps when the state remains in the hands of painters, the law risks becoming only a brush in the hand of power.

Besides the story of Apelles, in Greek mythology the myth of Icarus is also very interesting (exceeding the limit brings downfall). Daedalus builds wings of feathers and wax for himself and his son, Icarus, to escape from Crete. Before the flight, Daedalus warns him: do not fly too low and not too high. Icarus, drunk on the feeling of freedom and new power, rises ever higher. The sun melts the wax, the wings fall apart and he falls into the sea.

In a state of law, every power has its own shoe and every competence has its own limit. To cross one is like becoming the cobbler of Apelles beyond the shoe; to fly beyond the other is to repeat the fate of Icarus.