almanac on security sector oversight in the Western Balkans

Albania
Trust has increased in the independent institutions such as the People’s Advocate and
the Supreme State Audit Institution. This can be noticed in the increased number of
complaints to the People’s Advocate but also by the increase in recommendations issued
by the SAI that are later implemented by security sector actors. Both these institutions
need more resources to improve performance.
7.2. Police
Generally speaking, oversight of police is conducted by the CoM overshadowing parliament,
which approves the legal framework but is not heavily engaged in the drafting
of laws. Parliament rarely opposes and never has refused draft laws submitted
by the CoM. In addition, activity of parliamentary committees regarding drafting of
the laws and monitoring police faces additional challenges. These include limits on
properly checking draft legislation, lack of capacity and expertise of parliamentary
staff, etc.
There are independent oversight mechanisms related to the police, but their performance
was revised in the implementation phase. Governmental bodies tend to support
institutions under their competences which are likely to produce immediate political
benefit for the government. This is reflected in government attempts to weaken the
role of the People’s Advocate through extended delays in the appointment of the
head of this important independent institution, and reducing its annual budget and
human resources.
Although the legislation on police contains clear references to human rights protection
and provides mechanisms for protecting those rights, the internal oversight and
judicial oversight is limited in providing complete remedy of police breaches and violations.
Furthermore, public oversight of the police by civil society organisations is
lacking.
7.3. Intelligence services
Although Albania is considered to have moved already from the first to the second
generation of reforms, legislation on intelligence services still has important gaps.
Standardised legislation and procedures for ensuring equal control of all intelligence
services are still lacking. This allows the executive to have broad discretion and opportunity
to politicise intelligence. The division of labour among the main executive’s
officials is not fully regulated leading to personalised decision making and power
struggles.
Parliament formally oversees intelligence services through approval of the budget, but
it does this only as a formality as the ruling majority tends to automatically endorse
draft budgets proposed by the executive. Parliament may scrutinise the intelligence
services but this is performed only partially as the State Intelligence Service reports annually
to parliament. Lack of legislation does not allow the permanent Committee on
39
Almanac on Security Sector Oversight in the Western Balkans