In whose hands have we fallen? By Erion BRACE It is becoming a nightmare: the departure, dismissal— or even resignation—of every official If the opposite had happened, that is, if Hana and Rakipi had brought other evidence for the alibi against it, the truth would Albanian Deputy Prime Minister Ilir Meta

By Erion BRACE The departure, dismissal or even expulsion of every state official is turning into a nightmare. On every floor of the state administration, after every act, shocking information is heard from the mouths of those who have left. Recently, even in the prosecution service, where the handcuffs are put on—in the prosecutor’s office. The accusations have been very serious, and former prosecutor Xhevat Hana and Prosecutor General Rakipi have constantly pointed fingers at each other. Without going into the details of who is telling the truth and who is not, it is striking that neither of the two men who worked with the law has backed up their latest statements with concrete legal action. For example, former prosecutor Hana has not filed a full legal complaint over the changes allegedly made by Prosecutor General Rakipi, nor has the latter, although he denies being implicated, taken any legal action against a citizen who, according to him, “is seeking to set the institutions of this country against one another.” If the opposite had happened—that is, if Hana and Rakipi had brought credible evidence, one to support the accusation and the other to provide an alibi against it—the truth would have been much more tangible. But after all this, the question hanging over us like something ominous is: In whose hands have we fallen? In the hands of a justice system that does politics, or of a political class that says it delivers justice? Because in a state, however successful the government may be, it is the justice system that can overturn everything. A speck of injustice is enough to overturn all the balances of governmental success, and the country immediately degenerates into crisis. On many occasions, actions testify precisely to this, while the lack of restraint and distance from politics—qualities missing in the prosecution service—have mocked this country’s stability. And whom has this served? Everyone says at once: the clans. Otherwise, we would have placed much more faith in the denials made yesterday of the involvement alleged by Hana, if people in positions of authority inside the prosecutor’s office, before even hearing the Prosecutor General, had not spoken of documents that supposedly implicate Deputy Prime Minister Meta, starting with the spokesperson. The bitter aftertaste of all this is not simply the residue of the wrangling between a former prosecutor and the Prosecutor General. It comes from the bewilderment at how such a thing can happen among people who hold my freedom, your freedom, everyone’s freedom in their hands. Albanian Deputy Prime Minister Ilir Meta

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