Albania¶
The Albanian vetting shows how a remedy for a captured judiciary can take the form of a purge. It assumes that a corrupted bench cannot be reformed from within, and replaces trust in individual judges with an examination of their wealth and associations, in which the judge must answer doubts rather than the state prove misconduct. What distinguished it from a political cleansing was not the procedure but its surroundings: broad political consent, a right of appeal and supervision from outside. The method does not carry those conditions with it.
The clerk’s briefs¶
From the clerks, for the Patrician’s eyes
Not now, but keep the file. Litigants gain a bench that has been examined, and the judges who remain have learned that their office depends on passing such an examination, which may make them more careful of corruption and of power alike. The precedent outlasts the reform: a later majority could invoke it without the consent and supervision that made this one acceptable, and states seeking accession may be asked to copy it. Whether it stays a remedy depends on whether those conditions are demanded the next time it is used.
March 2026: The vetting ends¶
In March 2026 the Special Appeal Chamber issued its last decision, concluding what the European Commission’s 2026 rule of law report calls “a nine-year process of re-evaluation of all sitting judges, prosecutors, and senior legal assistants”. The outcome was 456 dismissals and terminations, 57 per cent of cases, and 348 confirmations in office; the EU delegation’s tally splits the 456 into 283 dismissals and 173 terminations, 114 of them following resignations. The clerks note that more than half of those re-evaluated left office, a quarter of the leavers by resigning rather than waiting for a verdict, and that the procedure which removed them was lawful, open to appeal and watched from abroad.
August 2016: Every judge re-examined¶
In July 2016 parliament unanimously amended the constitution, and in late August it passed the vetting law, under which all judges and prosecutors in duty were to be re-evaluated on their assets, on any “inappropriate contacts with persons involved in organized crime”, and on their proficiency. An Independent Qualification Commission decides first and an Appeal Chamber on appeal, with an International Monitoring Operation “led by the European Commission”. The stated purpose is to “guarantee the functioning of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary”. The clerks note that an entire bench is to be examined by bodies built for the purpose, and that nobody can yet say how many will still be sitting at the end.