68 rT ansitional Justice and Democratic Consolidation in post-communist aE stern uE rope: Romania and Albania. party- the Socialist Party was the former Labor Party that changed its name in a regular Congress party in 1991. One of the paradoxes in the Albanian case is that in the immediate aftermath of communism, some quick trials on former high-ranking members of Nomeklatura, gave senseless sentences based on ridiculous charge (Beshiri 1998) given the seriousness of crimes of Communist regime. For example, they condemned the wife of former dictator Hoxha and some members of former Politburo on financial abuses, the so-called “coffee trials”, because they calculated such financial misappropriation as coffees and other drinks or food appropriations from members of Politburo, rather than condemn them for crimes against humanity etc. This was corrected later, when in 1996 with the Genocide Law, they were condemned for a second time.19 For supporters that was the real thing, while for critics they were politically motivated charges (Beshiri 1998). Thus, they were purged in early post-communism years because the supported the dictatorship. Most of them anyhow benefitted from the post-1997 crises amnesty and were soon released from prison. On the other hand, commemorations have taken place regularly, though much more is expected to purge textbooks from (former) ideological lenses and include that part of population that was unjustly treated and those intellectuals and politicians who were purged because of ideological convictions from the communist regime. Lory Amy, in a recent paper proposes the following: 1. Prioritize restorative commemoration of cultural heritage sites as acts of cultural mourning; 2. Make articulating the structures of state terror primary – every violence against the Albanian population was committed legally, following the laws of the state and carried out by the institutions of the state. Use these articulations to directly confront the apologists and whitewashers with evidence of the criminal nature of the state; 3. Understand and articulate how denial is built into the functioning of the state; 4. Use the important opportunity provided by the newly established Authority to Open the Secret Police Files of the Former Communist Regime to lobby the government to bring an historical truth and memory commission to Albania (Amy 2019). On the other hand, Albania suffered from very limited trials that took place only in the aftermath of communist regime, lack of real apologies, lack of lustration etc. As one of the earliest examples of restorative justice in Albanian case was the apology of former President Berisha, immediately after the fall of Communism, in the very first year of transition: “[w]e are all guilty and we all suffered” (Berisha 2018). It was often quoted by critics from the right that emphasized that not enough was done in this earlier period to break the ties with the totalitarian past and to punish the guilty, as well as from the left that saw such declaration through ideological prism. Another example of restorative justice in Albania, were the truth commissions, but with very limited success as a transitional justice instrument influencing the democratization process. The Albanian truth commission, that took the name of its chairman in popular jargon, the Bezhani Commission20 had as its main goal the opening of dossiers of high-ranking members of the past administration and to prevent them to hold elected offices during democratic transition. In fact, it was highly contested and somewhat sabotaged from its inception.21 In fact, as a recent work is arguing based on a comparative study, with the sole exception of Chile and South Africa, there is very little evidence for truth commissions contributing to successful democratization overall (Brahm 2019). Albania could not have possibly been the exception from the rule, given also its overall obstacles, chief among which was the lack of a national consensus and the high political 19. The Genocide Law was specified only for very high ranked members of the regime, starting with deputy ministers and above. 20. It replaced the Mezini Commision. 21. In an interview given shortly before passing away, in June 2004 for German media “One Word Southeast Europe,” Bezhani takes pride on removing from offices 104 high-ranked politicians and bureaucrats, but he also warned about 56 tapes that were burned and hundreds of dossiers either lost, stolen or misplaced, never to be found. See for more: https://www.pressreader.com/albania/gazeta-shqiptare/20141211/281672548278426