almanac on security sector oversight in the Western Balkans

Albania
trust the expertise of the administrators and rely mainly on party experts. 17 These deficiencies
also are aggravated because of the specificities of the sector which very often
considers classified information.
4.4. Independent oversight bodies
As discussed in the introductory section, there are several independent bodies that perform
control and oversight in Albania. This section, however, will focus only on oversight
of Armed Forces by the People’s Advocate and the State Supreme Audit Institution (SAI).
4.4.1. People’s Advocate
The People’s Advocate’s (PsA) task is the control and oversight of the respect of human
rights by the Armed Forces. 18 The PsA is responsible for ensuring respect for human
rights within the Armed Forces as well as by the Armed Forces when they interact with
the wider public domestically or in international missions.
Reports of the People’s Advocate show that inspections, visits, and thematic oversight
of all command and military bases have been conducted. The People’s Advocate, as a
result of these activities, has issued recommendations. The main issues dealt with were
problems such as improving treatment of military personnel, as well as improving conditions
of military detentions. The People’s Advocate has emphasised in the last report of
2010 that the Albanian Ministry of Defence, the Chief of General Staff and other structures
have acted upon his recommendations and have taken measures without much
delay. It is interesting to note that in 2009 the People’s Advocate received seventy-eight
complaints and twenty-six of them were solved in favour of the plaintiffs. The high
number of complaints since 2000 and the rate of resolved cases show the increased trust
of citizens and of institutions in the PsA. The yearly reports show that many complaints
concern rights detailed in the Law on the Status of the Armed Forces of the Republic
of Albania (2004), which deals with treatment of Armed Forces personnel. The violated
rights regarded proper housing, ranking, dismissal from work, salary of personnel deployed
to Afghanistan, etc. On all these matters, the People’s Advocate has issued recommendations
to the respective structures. According to the People’s Advocate, however,
the Advocate’s office needs more specialised personnel with more capacities and
more financial resources to properly fulfil its oversight mandate over Armed Forces. 19
17 In an interview, Mr. Ilir Gjoni, Deputy Chairman of the CNS and opposition MP, stated that not only
the number of experts is limited as there are only one or two available and their practical function consists
mainly in helping preparing the meetings but the opposition MPs would not trust their expertise.
18 The PsA is nominated and elected by the parliament by three-fifths of all members for a five year
period with the right of re-election. The PsA may be discharged from duty only by the Parliament with
three-fifths of all its members on grounds of a reasoned complaint filed by not less than one-third of
its members.
19 For instance, the institution is composed mainly of lawyers while experts from other fields are needed
to better conduct inspections and to process various complaints.
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Almanac on Security Sector Oversight in the Western Balkans