uL stration laws dealing with state administration in Albania idea transmitted by some of these articles is that generally, lustration laws in Albania were unsuccessful because the process was disorganized and highly politicized.19 Fourthly, the prominent idea transmitted by some of these articles is that lustration laws in Albania were ineffective because of the inconsistency of these laws with the constitutional framework or international commitments.20 Fifthly, Albania is excluded from the statistical analyses because of the lack of consistent data21, or, because of its marginal and uncertain status.22 In the last place, we have seen as a limitation in the existing research the focusing of these articles mainly on the general transitional justice process in Albania, and not specifically on lustration laws, or a lack of research on current lustration measures in Albania. In our opinion, the methodologies used in these articles, i.e., mainly descriptive research without focusing on “why”, or, analyzing, and presenting data, did not guarantee an accurate understanding why these laws were unsuccessful, ineffective, or if the process was truly disorganized and highly politicized. Therefore, this literature review journey helped us to form our specific research question and to develop the desirable methodology to understand why these lustration laws dealing with the state administration in Albania did not achieve their purposes, i.e., the process of collecting, analyzing, and presenting data produced by authorities charged with designation and implementation of these lustration laws. Thus, Neil Kritz in his book “Transitional Justice”-vol. II, after giving a historical panorama of Albania starting from the occupation from Italy until the first lustration law in 1993, has written that a considerable amount of informal “lustration” has been taken in Albania, until the parliament passed the first lustration law providing the removal of persons from specific positions on the basis of their actions in the past.23 But, per our analysis, his considerations about the way how a lustration law should be designed are important. Thus, according to him the criterion of a successful lustration law is keeping a fair balance between individual human rights and the strongly felt desire that those who violated human rights under prior regimes receive due punishment24. While according to Austin25 and Ellison the first two lustration laws, i.e., the law nr. 8001, dated 22.10. 1995 On Genocide and law nr. 8043, dated 30.11.1995 the Verification Law, prima facie intended to ensure the democratic nature of the Albanian polity by restricting the entry of individuals with anti-democratic tendencies, but, in their context, scope, and implementation, it soon became evident that the Lustration Laws were being exploited by the Democratic Party to purge Albanian politicians. Thus, according to them, the law on Genocide was a very limited lustration law which did not therefore really serve a legal purpose; it did not effectively lustrate and was superfluous to genocide prosecutions. While the Verification Law, the first real lustration law, for screening potential and actual members of … state administration … had been seriously undermined. In conclusion Austin and Ellison stated that Albania was a laggard in transitional justice. The process started but it always seemed to be driven by politics.26 Whereas, in their article “Public Contestation and Politics of Transitional Justice: Poland and Albania Compared”, Arolda Elbasani and Artur Lipinski gave some reasons why Law on Genocide and Law on Verification were defective. Thus they stated that the law on ‘Genocide’ did not have a 19. Robert C. Austin, Jonathan Ellison, Post-Communist Transitional Justice in Albania, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 22, 1998); Arolda Elbasani, Artur Lipinski, Public contestation and politics of transitional justice: Poland and Albania compared, (EUI Working Papers SPS 2011/02); Cynthia Horne, Silent Lustration Public Disclosures as Informal Lustration Mechanisms in Bulgaria and Romania, (Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 62, 2015); Bledar Abdurrahmani, Transitional justice in Albania: the lustration reform and information on communism files, (Interdisciplinary Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 5, no. 3, 2018). 20. Vladimir Balaš, Albanian lustration act, its constitutional and international law pros and cons, (CYIL 1, 2010). 21. Cynthia Horne, Assessing the Impact of Lustration on Trust in Public Institutions and National Government in Central and Eastern Europe, (Comparative Political Studies 45(4), 2012); Cynthia Horne, Silent Lustration Public Disclosures as Informal Lustration Mechanisms in Bulgaria and Romania, (Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 62, 2015); 22. Jon Elster, Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective, (Cambridge University Press, 2004). 23. Page 730. 24. Page 734. 25. An expert of Albania and Kosovo history, 26. Page 380. 81

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents