oT pic: The mental health system as a target of transitional justice: Mental Health reform in post-communist Albania ABSTRACT Reconciliation and transitional justice are related to the building of trust in the context of inclusive peace building after violent conflicts or authoritarian regimes. Elements of transitional justice include both judicial and non-judicial measures, whose application aims to redress legacies of human rights abuses. This paper aims to evaluate the relation between political transition and the mental health system, and how the mental health system addresses the needs of citizens in terms of treatment, dignity and human rights, notably through an understanding of the right to health. It also addresses the use of punitive psychiatry in Albania during the communist regime, where the mental health system was used as a tool of repression against political dissidents. The paper proposes that mental health needs be prioritized as a part of transitional justice in contexts transitioning from conflict, mass atrocities or violence. Organized efforts which support the mental health and psychosocial needs of survivors, make an impact in their individual’s ability to deal with the past, promote individual and societal stability, healthier families and communities, and boost the opportunity to participate in civic life and positive civil society growth. Mental health is not exclusively a health or medical concern, it is also a matter of human rights, dignity, and social justice. Users of mental health services, persons with mental health conditions and persons with mental health disabilities are positioned at the confluence of many vulnerabilities, particularly those arising from poverty, stigma, discrimination, social isolation and segregation. Key words: Transitional justice, mental health, peace building, reconciliation INTRODUCTION Reconciliation and transitional justice are related to the building of trust in the context of inclusive peace building after violent conflicts or authoritarian regimes. Both seek to address the legacies of violence and human rights abuses to compensate for past wrongs and promote social healing. According to the United Nations, transitional justice represents society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, to ensure accountability, deliver justice and achieve reconciliation.1 This may include both judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, with differing levels of international involvement (or none at all) including individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting, and lustration or a combination thereof. Transitional justice represents both a discourse and practice that presents itself in terms of support to victims of human rights violations and gains its moral legitimacy from the fact that victims are deserving and the claim that transitional justice has the aim of acknowledging victims and providing redress. According to Robins, this claim is interrogated in the light of a practice that appears to be rooted in liberal state-building and for which victims are an essential instrument of prescribed mechanisms of transitional justice, such as trials and truth commissions.2 Application of transitional justice’s mechanisms is still in process in some of the former communist countries. Referring to the United Nations, four pillars of transitional justice process include truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. 1. UN Security Council Report, The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies (S/2004/616, 2004). 2. Simon Robins, Failing Victims? The Limits of Transitional Justice in Addressing the Needs of Victims of Violations. Human Rights and International Legal Discourse. (Human Rights and International Legal Discourse, 2017). 99