Improving the capacity of the Albanian judiciary to apply the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case-law at the national level, as well as to enable legal professionals to effectively apply remedies related to non-enforcement of national judgments constitute a priority area of assistance for the Council of Europe and European Union in Albania.

Under the second phase of the European Union/Council of Europe Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey, the action entitled “Supporting enforcement of judicial decisions and facilitating the execution of European Court of Human Rights judgements in Albania” has a strong focus on property rights notably on improving effectiveness of the property compensation mechanism and on supporting harmonisation of judicial practice at the national level.

In its first Steering Committee meeting, held on 17 October 2019, in Tirana, representatives from the main beneficiary institutions, the European Union, the Council of Europe, and partner organizations agreed on the key results achieved on the first phase and the future milestones of this action. The meeting resulted in meaningful exchanges and adaption of the plan of activities among the key beneficiary institutions, including the State Advocate, the Agency for the Treatment of Property, the Agency of the State Cadaster, in line with their specific needs.

The event was addressed by Ms Lenka Vitkova, Head of Rule of Law and Good Governance from the European Union Delegation in Tirana, who tackled the support that this project is giving for the implementation of Strasbourg case-law in Albania stressing that the better the case-law is implemented, fewer cases will go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Mr Olsi Dekovi, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Tirana, thanked the participants for their commitment and contribution in the first phase while emphasized the necessity of effective coordination and ownership of all responsible national bodies for the execution of judicial decisions.