BIRN: The 2025 budget risks impeding the transition of the vetting process

Neither the Assembly nor the government, in the draft budget of 2025, has foreseen the legal and financial practice for the transitional period of the transition of vetting functions from the Public Commissioners to the Head of Special Prosecutions, SPAK.

From January 1, 2025, the group of advisors working for the Public Commissioner are considered unemployed and it is not known who will support the head of SPAK in the cases that will be announced for judgment by the Special Appeal Panel. According to official data, there are more than 41 complaints of the Public Commissioner waiting to be judged in the College since January.

The successive requests of the Public Commissioner during this year addressed to the Parliamentary Committee of Laws have been left in oblivion, while in these letters emergency changes in the "veting" law are requested to resolve this impasse.

The problem was discussed on Friday in this commission during the review of the budget for the Special Prosecutor's Office, where it was found that there was uncertainty about the salaries of the technical team of the Public Commissioner who will continue working after the end of the constitutional term of his operation.

The Ministry of Finance has foreseen a 3-month transition period and has left evasive the issue of the number of administrative employees who will be transferred and the budget funds for their salaries.

"Within the month of January, the SPAK and the KLGJ present to the ministry responsible for finance the number and the relevant time period of necessary employees, which number is deposited in the treasury branch," the draft budget states.

"On the basis of these requests, the fund for this number of employees will be determined," said the representative of the Ministry of Finance, Vilma Çausholli.

She added that in the meantime SPAK has been budgeted an additional 10 economic and legal advisors to cope with these new functions.

The representative of SPAK, prosecutor Alfred Shehu, suggested to the Assembly that a sentence be added specifying that "administrative employees transferred for the closing process should be treated financially with the same inherited salary structure".

"This addition is necessary because the provision by law of their financial treatment enables this treatment in this short transitional period, since if it is not added to the law, the financial treatment from our side will be difficult for the reason that for the same job position, for example Chancellor, we will have two people, the existing ones of SPAK and those transferred (received) from the Institution of the Commissioner," explained Shehu.

For the opposition MPs, the transfer of the technical and legal staff of the Public Commissioner was unclear and not based on the law and jeopardized the continuity of the work.

"There is an absurdity with the proposal of the ministry," said the head of the DP parliamentary group, Gazment Bardhi, asking where these employees will be paid and will continue their duties, if the proposals for the new structure are made in January and it is not known when are approved.

He also questioned the 3-month transition period, referring to the Public Commissioner's request that this period be 6 months. "What happens if this process is not done in this specified period?" he said.

Even the head of the commission, Klotilda Bushka, found that "there is inconsistency" in the relevant article of the draft budget, suggesting that the commission reformulate it to adapt the legal provisions and the needs of the institutions that receive these functions.

"In order to budget the institutions according to the number they require and according to what is in accordance with the provisions of the law," she said, addressing the representatives of the ministry.

The MPs also discussed the clarification of the budget program that will include the salaries of this technical staff of the Public Commissioner, since this institution is not included in the budget programs for the coming year.

The Public Commissioner has been asking the Assembly for a legal solution to this problem for several months. Through three letters in February, June and October, this institution requests an intervention in the vetting law to guarantee the continuity of work for the Legal Unit and the Administrative Unit at the Special Prosecutor's Office, SPAK.

The law approved in 2016 only provided for the continuation of the mandate of the general secretary and a staff for this transition of functions, which provides for archiving processes and the delivery of all documentation and assets from one institution to another for a period of 6 months.

Specifically, the Public Commissioner requests the approval of "an organic structure" near this institution that will make this transition of functions possible.

The draft budget for the coming year of SPAK is expected to be 2.17 billion ALL, but prosecutor Shehu said that the additional requests related to salaries and other items have not been taken into consideration, asking for an additional amount of 491.4 million ALL.

The opposition MPs called it disturbing that the government decides to deal with the financial demands of the justice bodies, which according to them are the attribute of the Assembly only. Reporter.al