Monday 6 October, the President of Albania organised a conference on ‘Reforming the judicial system in Albania’. Our project team, consisting of international and national experts from IRZ, CILC and AED participated, since our project objective is “…to strengthen the independence, transparency, efficiency, accountability and public trust in the Albanian justice system in line with the EU acquis and best practices”. The political message during the conference was strong and clear: no corruption in the judiciary and Albania needs a comprehensive and all-inclusive judicial reform.
Since this conference was launched a month after the first experts started work, one can say that the project had to fire up its engines quickly. The atmosphere is very positive, although the team is not yet complete and the office organisation had a slow start. Interesting is that the German Team Leader wants to have team building, not only within the project, but also with the beneficiaries. So everyone of the Ministry was invited to share a coffee and a croissant at the kick-off meeting. It resulted in lively interactions and we experience that it contributes to an even more cooperative atmosphere.
The inception phase for this project started on the first of September, and the first draft of the inception report will be circulated shortly. More to follow on this from mid November, when the project presents its Inception Report at its first visibility event …
Erwin Rooze, Judicial Administration Expert