The Unfinished Business of rT ansitional Justice: Reparation of oF rmer Political Prisoners in Post-Communist Albania ABSTRACT After the fall of the communist regime, Albanian authorities have adopted fragmented transitional justice measures including trials, compensation of victims, and access to secret police file. It is argued that measures to deal with the communist past in Albania have produced limited results because the process has been politicized and a lack of will to deal with the past has persisted. On the contrary there is an apathy and indifference to address the legacies of communist past. No research has been undertaken to study the reparation of former political prisoners as one the key pillars of transitional justice. This research focuses on the reparation of former political prisoners in post-communist Albania. Through interviews with former political prisoners, this research tries to explore the victims’ needs, the measure taken until now to repair victims and the future implication to address the victim’s needs. The paper analyses the role that financial compensation, access to files, apology and forgiveness, justice and socio-political empowerment plays heal former political prisoners. Keywords: Albania, transitional justice, former political prisoners, reparation, compensation, communism. INTRODUCTION “Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell, ‘1984’ The last two decades of the 20th century are associated with historic changes when democratic movements around the world began to overthrow dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. More than 60 countries around the world started some form of democratic transition trend that political scientists defined as the ‘third wave of democratization’.1 Transitional justice (TJ) in practice and scholarly debates started to discuss the approaches these new democracies should take as Ruti Teitel asked the question ‘How should [they] deal with their evil pasts?.2 She describes TJ as a field that explores the role of the law in periods of radical transformation particularly with a focus on legal responses and the concept of law and justice in the context of political transformation.3 The role that TJ plays in post-communist or post-conflict countries has been assessed in a wider context including also non-judicial means such as truth commissions, providing reparations to victims, and facilitating reconciliation processes.4 TJ is seen as a set of practices that are not only desirable but necessary to complete a transition from war or dictatorship to peace and democracy.5 Furthermore, it has been argued that TJ measures can work as catalysts during the regime change and regime consolidation periods to help build either exclusive autocratic societies or inclusive democratic ones.6 1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (University of Oklahoma Press, 1991) 2. Ruti Teitel, Transitional Justice (Oxford University Press, 2000) 3 3. Ibid, 4 4. Pablo De Griff (eds), The Handbook on Reparations (Oxford University Press, 2006) 3 5. Simon Robins, ‘Failing Victims? The Limits of Transitional Justice in Addressing the Needs of Victims of Violations’ (2017) 11 HR&ILD 1 6. Anja Mihr, ‘Regime Consolidation through Transitional Justice in Europe: The Cases of Germany, Spain and Turkey’ (2017) 11 IJTJ 1 31