‘No Grounds’: The Socialist Majority’s Case Against Authorising Balluku’s Arrest

On 9 March 2026, the Socialist Party parliamentary group convened ahead of the Assembly’s plenary vote on whether to authorise the Special Prosecution Office against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK) to arrest Deputy Belinda Balluku. SPAK had submitted its request on 16 December 2025, seeking to replace an existing travel ban with pre-trial detention, on charges of violating equality of participants in public tenders — offences linked to major infrastructure contracts including the Llogara Tunnel. The Council on Mandates, Regulations and Immunity, whose majority members represent the Socialist Party, recommended rejection. Below is the address delivered to the group by Ulsi Manja, the majority’s floor manager on the Council, presenting that recommendation. It is published here in full and without editorial comment.

by the Tirana Examiner 

 

Honourable Prime Minister, honourable fellow deputies,

On behalf of the majority members of the Parliamentary Committee on Regulations, Mandates and Immunity, I present today our recommendatory report on the examination of the request of the Special Prosecution Office against Corruption and Organised Crime for the granting of authorisation for the arrest and deprivation of liberty of Deputy Belinda Balluku, submitted to the Assembly of Albania on 16 December 2025.

At the outset, I would like to thank my colleagues on the Council for the conscientiousness and seriousness with which we have treated this matter.

We have, of course, discussed the prosecution’s report and the claims of the parties before the Council, and in the end we have reached this recommendatory report, which I present today in full agreement among ourselves.

Honourable colleagues,

Today, as we discuss this recommendatory report, a new reality has emerged. We are now confronted with a new — legal and institutional — reality.

Deputy Belinda Balluku no longer exercises executive functions as a member of the Council of Ministers, as a consequence of the changes in the composition of the government pursuant to Articles 95, 96, 98 and 102 of the Constitution of the Republic of Albania.

As a consequence, the personal security measure of suspension from duty as a member of the Council of Ministers no longer produces any real legal effect.

By the same line of reasoning, however, the rationale on which the Special Prosecution built its request for the application of the most severe personal security measures — namely the risk of tampering with evidence, flight, or the commission of another criminal offence — remains deeply hypothetical, because it is linked directly and specifically to the exercise of executive functions which the deputy in question no longer holds.

Even so, this does not mean that the presentation of this report before the Assembly is a merely formal procedure.

On the contrary, it represents a direct constitutional responsibility of the Assembly of the Republic of Albania. It is an expression of institutional respect toward justice, and above all it is an obligation toward the Albanian citizens who have entrusted us with their representation.

This is all the more important in a situation where this matter — which in its substance must remain, and does remain, a matter for justice and justice alone — has been unfairly transformed into an excessively politically charged debate in the court of public opinion.

Instead of a calm and regular legal process, we have often seen attempts to shift this issue into the realm of public judgment — into a kind of media tribunal — something incompatible with the standards of the rule of law and with the fundamental principle of the presumption of innocence.

For precisely these reasons it is necessary for us, as the parliamentary majority, to speak clearly: to separate politics from justice, noise from facts, and public judgment from due legal process.

The nature of SPAK’s request

Honourable colleagues, the request of the Special Prosecution Office against Corruption and Organised Crime in the case of Deputy Belinda Balluku in fact differs from other requests that have previously come before the Assembly of Albania for authorisation of arrest, deprivation of liberty, home searches or personal searches — because it is not a request for the imposition of a security measure for the first time.

We are not in that situation here.

In this case, the Assembly is being asked to replace an existing personal security measure — whose effects are currently in force against Deputy Belinda Balluku, namely the ban on leaving the country — with a more severe measure, namely arrest, in relation to a criminal offence which the Special Prosecution has been investigating since August 2024.

So we are dealing with a request for the replacement of a measure already in force.

Under Article 260(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, replacement of a security measure may be requested in only two cases:

When the security needs have intensified; or when the person against whom the security measure has been imposed has failed to comply with the measure ordered by the court.

The second case is plainly excluded here.

Deputy Belinda Balluku — as is demonstrated by the Special Prosecution’s report, and by the reasoning, facts and evidence accompanying that report — has correctly and properly respected the personal security measure imposed on her, namely the ban on leaving the country.

Therefore, in our assessment as a Council, the only remaining ground is the alleged intensification of security needs — and those grounds which the Special Prosecution has set out in its request: the extension of the criminal episodes, the risk of tampering with evidence, the risk of flight, and the risk of committing another, more serious criminal offence.

The assessment of the majority members of the Council in this recommendatory report addresses precisely those claimed grounds.

Before doing so, I would like us to be clear for the public record: the Assembly does not have the power to adjudicate guilt, nor to substitute itself for the court in this procedure.

The Assembly exercises a constitutional filter — and in our assessment, that filter cannot be merely formal.

The Assembly’s constitutional role

It constitutes an essential mechanism for preserving institutional balance and for respecting the role which the Constitution assigns to the legislative branch in relation to the other branches of government.

The Assembly’s jurisdiction and competence in this specific case is based on Article 73(2) of the Constitution, on Articles 260, 288, 289 and 108 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of Albania, which designate the Council on Regulations, Mandates and Immunity as the organ of the Assembly that examines every request of the prosecuting authority whenever authorisation is sought for the arrest of a deputy, or for the replacement of a personal security measure with a more severe one — which is the situation in this case.

Article 73(2) of the Constitution states very clearly that a deputy may not be arrested or deprived of liberty in any form without prior authorisation from the Assembly.

This constitutional provision establishes an institutional guarantee for the exercise of the representative mandate and for the independent functioning of the legislative branch.

In the same vein, Article 288 of the Code of Criminal Procedure requires the prosecution, whenever it seeks authorisation from the Assembly, to submit a reasoned report supported by the evidence underpinning the request.

Against this normative background, the Assembly’s competence in reviewing the Special Prosecution’s request is of a procedural-constitutional nature, and not a judicial one.

The Assembly does not adjudicate guilt, nor does it assess the merits of the evidence — that power belongs exclusively to the competent court.

The Assembly’s competence in this specific case is confined to assessing:

Whether the legal conditions exist for granting authorisation for the replacement of the current measure — the ban on leaving the country — with a more severe measure such as imprisonment, house arrest, deprivation of liberty in any form, or personal and home searches of Deputy Belinda Balluku; whether the security needs have genuinely intensified; whether there are new, concrete circumstances; whether the interference with the parliamentary mandate is proportionate; and whether arrest is truly necessary as an exceptional measure.

As to whether the request has been made under political influence or for other improper motives — the Assembly does not assess the criminal evidence, but it does assess the conditions and circumstances in order to form the conviction as to whether the security needs have in fact intensified.

The Assembly must base its assessment on its own judgment, by reference to the prosecution’s report and the evidence supporting it.

Allow me to pause briefly to explain the significance of this role.

Although the defence of Deputy Belinda Balluku made no claim before the Council that the criminal proceedings and investigation were politically motivated, the Council nonetheless notes one public fact.

The first complaint, filed in August 2024, was made by Lulzim Basha, former chairman of the Democratic Party of Albania.

The second complaint, filed in September 2024, was made by Gazment Bardhi, secretary of the Democratic Party — today chairman of its parliamentary group and a member of the Council on Mandates and Immunity — a person in respect of whom I noted, even during the Council’s meeting, that he is in this specific case in a situation of conflict of interest, since he is himself one of the complainants in this matter.

In 2025, those two criminal proceedings were merged into a single proceeding, which today bears a single unique case number and forms the basis of the investigation against Deputy Belinda Balluku.

It is also worth noting that the original complaints in 2024 were made during a pre-electoral period and in a politically charged climate, and that after the elections of May 2025, the political rhetoric in this direction intensified once again — a matter which has accompanied this process throughout.

But in our analysis and our assessment, we have not stopped at this point.

We have not done so because we fully respect both the position of the defence and the public position of Deputy Belinda Balluku herself — which is that this is a matter for justice and justice alone. And it is a fact that we have not deviated from that position in defining the nature and scope of the review that the Assembly carries out. We hold to that position, and we respect the public stance of our colleague Belinda Balluku.

Our review is confined strictly to the legal conditions

But in reviewing the Special Prosecution’s request to replace the personal security measure of the ban on leaving the country with the more severe measure — the most severe provided by the Code, namely arrest in prison — we have confined our assessment strictly to whether the legal conditions are met for such replacement: solely as regards the intensification of the security needs, and whether the legal conditions for replacement of that measure are satisfied, as regards the risk of tampering with evidence, the risk of flight, and the risk of committing another, more serious criminal offence.

It is important for the public, and for you honourable deputy colleagues, to emphasise one fact of greater significance.

In our assessment we have relied strictly on the evidence and reasoning accompanying the Special Prosecution’s request, and we have remained faithful to Article 288 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. We have not conducted a judicial evaluation of the evidence — that is not the role of the Assembly.

The role of the Assembly is that of constitutional and parliamentary review: to determine whether the request submitted by the Special Prosecution is strictly procedurally sound.

We had serious discussions within the Council. The report was not concluded as a single joint report, because the opposition holds a different position from ours, and the report which recommends granting authorisation — which is the report of the opposition members of the Council on Mandates — advances the thesis that the Assembly of the Republic of Albania should confine itself to a formal verification of the prosecution’s request and should not engage at all in assessing whether the security needs have intensified.

In our assessment as the majority members of the Council on Mandates, that reductive approach is not in fact consistent with the spirit and function of Article 73 of the Constitution.

The treatment of the Special Prosecution’s request in accordance with the spirit and the letter of the constitutional norm lies at the very heart of resolving the issue now before the Assembly of Albania.

Article 73 of the Constitution gives the Assembly of the Republic of Albania a role that is not merely formal in deciding whether or not to grant authorisation.

Authorisation is a constitutionally relevant act of will which carries full political and legal responsibility.

To put it plainly: if granting authorisation were mandatory every time the prosecution requested it, the constitutional provision would be superfluous, and the Assembly would be reduced to a merely formal body with no real balancing function in the specific case.

The Constitutional Court has emphasised this in its own jurisprudence, as has the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and as the Venice Commission has repeatedly underlined in its opinions.

Procedural immunity cannot be a personal privilege. It is an institutional guarantee for the protection of the free functioning of the Assembly.

This means the Assembly has an obligation to verify whether an interference with personal liberty is real, necessary and proportionate.

Why the Assembly’s role cannot be merely formal

This important role of the Assembly emerges even more clearly if we consider the case of a deputy being detained or arrested in flagrante delicto.

Under Article 73(3) of the Constitution — I am quoting directly — if a deputy is detained or arrested without prior authorisation when caught in the act of committing a crime, or immediately thereafter, the head of the Special Prosecution must notify the Assembly immediately, which, if it finds that there are no grounds, decides to lift the measure.

So, dear colleagues, from this constitutional provision it is entirely clear that the Assembly’s role in examining a request for authorisation to arrest a member of the Assembly is not formal — it is fundamental to the very nature of the review the Assembly conducts.

The Assembly — in this case, when it finds that the procedural conditions and criteria which affect the personal liberty of one of its members have not been respected — acquires attributes that are otherwise reserved for the judiciary. And this is entirely within the spirit of Article 73(3) of the Constitution.

By contrast, if the Assembly were to vote automatically on the sole basis of the prosecution’s request, it would be abandoning its constitutional function and undermining the principle of the separation of powers.

Let us also be very clear for the public record.

Immunity from criminal investigation and prosecution no longer exists in Albania following the constitutional amendments of 2012.

A deputy is subject to investigation, just like any other citizen of the Republic of Albania, and personal security measures may be imposed against him or her — from a ban on leaving the country to house arrest or imprisonment.

But the Constitution has preserved a limited procedural immunity for those measures that directly affect the fundamental right of personal liberty, for which prior authorisation from the Assembly is required before arrest.

This should not be considered a personal shield, but an institutional balancing mechanism.

And as of today, Deputy Belinda Balluku has been under criminal investigation by the Special Prosecution since August 2024. She is already subject to the personal security measure of a ban on leaving the country. The Special Prosecution is conducting its investigation freely and is not being obstructed in the exercise of its constitutional and procedural competences as regards criminal prosecution and investigation.

But as regards the request for the replacement of that measure, the ultimate competence to grant or deny authorisation belongs to the plenary session of the Assembly of Albania, after receiving a recommendatory report from the Council on Regulations, Mandates and Immunity.

Claims that the Assembly — by safeguarding the principles of legality, legal certainty, separation of powers, equality before the law and the independence of the investigation, as guaranteed by Articles 4, 7, 8, 12 and 128(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of Albania — would in any way be obstructing justice, have no constitutional or legal basis whatsoever. They are entirely political claims.

On the contrary, setting clear boundaries for the protection of these principles makes the criminal process itself more reliable as regards due process.

Parliamentary procedure and the Constitutional Court

I will not dwell at length on the parliamentary procedure, as it has already been explained, but I note that we held two meetings: one on 19 December and one on 23 February 2026 — the latter being a continuation of the former.

In the course of the second meeting, we took into account the decision of the Constitutional Court, which had been seised by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers to resolve a competence conflict between the Government and the Prime Minister on the one hand, and the Special Court against Corruption and Organised Crime on the other, as regards the suspension from duty of a member of the Council of Ministers, and the interpretation of Article 103 of the Constitution, which concerns the overlap between the immunity of a deputy and membership of the Council of Ministers.

The Constitutional Court issued a procedural decision of 4 votes to 4 — which, under the organic law governing that institution, means the appeal is rejected. It therefore did not produce a substantive ruling on the merits of the competence dispute between the Council of Ministers, the Prime Minister, and the Special Court.

The fact that we waited for the Constitutional Court’s decision is itself evidence of the seriousness and responsibility with which we have treated this request. And — it must be said — that same wait, in respect of the Constitutional Court’s decision on the suspension from duty, was observed also by the Special Court of Appeal, which likewise waited for and respected the Constitutional Court’s ruling.

Factual background of the case

The factual circumstances are as follows.

In August 2024, September 2024, and June 2025, three criminal proceedings were initiated and subsequently merged into one, concerning the offence of violation of equality of participants in public tenders or auctions, as provided by Article 252 of the Criminal Code. [Note: the original transcript is inconsistent on this article number; some passages suggest Article 258/2. This should be verified against the official SPAK filing.]

The personal security measure of a ban on leaving the country was imposed on Deputy Belinda Balluku in November 2025 and remains in force today.

Then, on 6 January 2026, the Special Prosecution formally moved the Assembly of Albania and requested the replacement of that measure with arrest, alleging an intensification of security needs, the risk of tampering with evidence, the risk of flight, and the risk of committing other criminal offences.

After hearing both the prosecutors and the defence of Deputy Belinda Balluku, the Council deliberated behind closed doors in order to preserve the secrecy of the investigation — as was also requested by the Special Prosecution itself, which asked the Council members to conduct the deliberations behind closed doors for that reason.

At the end of those deliberations, we arrived at the following positions.

On the alleged intensification of security needs

The Council considered the legal standard laid down in Article 260(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the replacement of security measures.

That provision clearly requires the existence of new, objective circumstances that render the existing security measure insufficient to guarantee the proper conduct of the criminal proceedings.

The Special Prosecution argues in its report, as an annexed supporting submission, that additional facts or new criminal episodes have emerged — and that, according to the prosecution, the addition of these new episodes automatically increases both the potential penalty and the hypothetical damage caused to the state through these public procurement procedures.

In our assessment as members of the Council, however, if every expansion of an investigation were treated as a new circumstance sufficient to justify arrest as an extreme measure, then every complex criminal proceeding involving multiple episodes would invariably end in pre-trial detention — which would be contrary to the principle of proportionality and to the exceptional nature of arrest as a security measure.

Both procedural doctrine and jurisprudence broadly accept that pre-trial detention is the measure of last resort.

Even with the alleged addition of new episodes, one crucial fact remains unchanged: the legal nature of the offence remains the same — violation of equality of participants in public tenders or auctions.

There is no new criminal offence that has been charged against Deputy Belinda Balluku by the Special Prosecution. It remains the same.

Therefore, the claim that security needs have intensified does not appear to satisfy the procedural standard required for replacement of the existing measure.

On the alleged risk of tampering with evidence

The Special Prosecution claims the existence of a risk of interference with the criminal process, citing the possibility of influence through persons of influence, through officials in the administration, and through pressure on witnesses.

Now, as regards this claim, the Special Prosecution’s argument relies primarily on the executive functions which Deputy Belinda Balluku previously exercised — but those functions, as I said in the very context of the request itself, she no longer exercises.

More importantly: as of today, there is no accusation of obstruction of justice against Deputy Belinda Balluku.

Neither in the written report nor in the oral submissions before the Council was there any direct or indirect evidence showing that she used her influence to tamper with evidence in the possession of the prosecuting authority.

This matters all the more because the offence with which Belinda Balluku is charged is an administrative-criminal offence. All the documentary evidence concerning the allegedly irregular procurement procedures has already been seized from the Ministry of Infrastructure and from other institutions and is now in the possession of the prosecuting authority.

Likewise, substantial other evidence, primarily witness statements, has already been collected by the prosecuting authority.

What did the Special Prosecution present to the Council in closed session?

Respecting the obligation of investigative secrecy, I can say only this: a procedural record of a conversation between two citizens, obtained through special investigative means in conformity with criminal procedure and by court order — in which they discuss the testimony that one of them had given during investigation before the Special Prosecution. That witness allegedly claims — or at least expressed the view — that she had been intimidated in relation to her testimony.

But it does not emerge either from the transcript presented to us or from the declarations of that citizen that she was intimidated by Deputy Belinda Balluku directly — certainly not directly; nor even indirectly — and even the reference to “the cabinet” is insufficient, because “the cabinet” is an abstract notion in the context of an investigation. Criminal proceedings are not conducted against abstractions. The cabinet is composed of public officials with first names and surnames, and that is how pretensions must be framed in an investigative context.

Nor does the suggestion that this witness may have been intimidated by “powerful persons” constitute, in itself, proof of tampering with evidence.

Indeed, from the witness’s own statement, as recalled before the Council, she said in effect: I will stand by my testimony; whatever others may tell me, I will not change it even if intimidated by powerful people.

In any case, a piece of evidence of that kind would still need to be corroborated by other evidence, because evidence obtained through special investigative means forms part of the search for evidence and cannot by itself constitute proof.

There is also an important procedural point: that witness has the status of a co-defendant in the same criminal proceeding.

Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, the statements of a defendant or co-defendant in the same proceeding must always be treated with caution, because such a person bears no criminal liability for false testimony in the same way as an ordinary witness, and is free — within limits — in his or her assertions and denials for as long as that status is maintained.

For all these reasons, the risk of tampering with evidence was not demonstrated by real facts.

At bottom, these are considerations whose foundation lies in the ministerial function that our colleague Deputy Belinda Balluku formerly held — and it is even more significant that the accusation itself remains the same. Because if evidence had in fact been tampered with, one might expect a second charge for obstruction of justice, which is itself a criminal offence under the Criminal Code.

On the alleged risk of flight

I will be brief here.

There is now a well-established practice — in our own courts, in the Constitutional Court, and in the European Court of Human Rights — that the risk of flight must be real and not merely assumed.

Deputy Belinda Balluku, even while fully aware of the ongoing investigation since August 2024, and even after the charges were formally communicated to her by the Special Prosecution, travelled abroad on several occasions and returned every time to Albania — in compliance both with the security measure and with the institutional function she was then exercising.

She travelled to Bucharest on 26–27 October, to Rome on 13–14 October, and in every case she returned to the Republic of Albania, demonstrating orderly conduct and no attempt to evade the prosecuting authorities.

She has surrendered all identification documents as required by the court’s order — indeed, even a newly issued identity card, which was issued after the travel ban came into effect, was handed over by her lawyers to the prosecuting authority as soon as it was received.

As you all know, an identity card allows travel to the countries of the region.

This demonstrates correct conduct by Deputy Belinda Balluku in relation to the criminal investigation being conducted against her.

The claim that the prospective severity of the criminal sanction might hypothetically create a risk of flight is contradicted by the concrete facts and evidence.

For that reason as well, this argument does not stand.

On the alleged risk of reoffending

On this I will be even briefer, because the risk of reoffending must also be real and not hypothetical.

Taking into account the fact that Deputy Belinda Balluku no longer exercises executive functions in the state administration, the interpretation advanced by the Special Prosecution in its request — according to which any public official who exercises a public function and administers public funds would by that fact alone provide sufficient grounds to justify the risk of reoffending — cannot stand.

Because if that reasoning were accepted, personal security measures would cease to be a procedural instrument designed to guarantee the proper conduct of criminal proceedings and would become instead a form of institutional sanction against every public official.

For that reason, this argument of the Special Prosecution also fails.

Conclusion of the majority members

In conclusion, we — the majority members of the Council on Mandates and Immunity — have reached the conclusion that there are no grounds to grant authorisation for the replacement of the current personal security measure, namely the ban on leaving the country, with a more severe measure — namely arrest in prison or house arrest — as provided in Articles 237 and 238 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

It is true that in a state governed by the rule of law, the fight against corruption and the proper functioning of justice are legitimate and necessary objectives. But these objectives must always be pursued in accordance with constitutional principles and with the procedural guarantees that protect fundamental rights and liberties — all the more so given that we are not speaking here of a corruption offence in the strict sense, but of an offence under Article 252 concerning equality in public tenders.

Accordingly, on the basis of Article 73 of the Constitution of the Republic of Albania, Articles 268, 288 and 289 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and Article 118 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of Albania, we — the majority members of the Council on Regulations, Mandates and Immunity — recommend to the plenary session, and to you honourable deputy colleagues, the rejection of the Special Prosecution’s request for authorisation for the arrest and deprivation of liberty of Deputy Belinda Balluku, and the denial of that authorisation — because, from the examination of the materials and circumstances accompanying the Special Prosecution’s request and the relevant report, it does not emerge that the necessity of imposing such a measure has been established in a manner proportionate to the exercise of the parliamentary mandate and the functioning of the Assembly as an institution.

This recommendation does not in any way prevent the Special Prosecution from continuing its investigation against Deputy Belinda Balluku.

A personal security measure — the ban on leaving the country — is already in force, and in our view it fully guarantees the continuation of the criminal proceeding against her.

Personal security measures are not necessarily tied to the existence or non-existence of the criminal offence itself. The conclusion of the investigations must be awaited in order to determine how this process will ultimately develop.

But I would also draw the attention of this group — and I have left this for the end deliberately — to the following: from the annual reports of the justice institutions to the Assembly of Albania, and specifically from the annual report of the Special Prosecution itself, it is clearly evident that for the offence of violation of equality of participants in public tenders or auctions, there is already a consolidated practice of investigation and prosecution without personal security measures. And not merely that — none of the reports that have come before the Assembly of Albania shows a case in which replacement of a travel ban with arrest has been sought for this specific offence, which has generally been investigated and adjudicated without detention measures.

I leave this point for the end because it relates to the standards of investigation and adjudication required for a regular legal process with respect to an offence of this particular kind. We are not speaking here of a corruption offence in the strict sense, nor of other criminal offences that fall within the more serious categories of SPAK’s jurisdiction.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Perhaps I spoke at somewhat too great a length — the report itself is long — but the handling of a request of this kind is a moment of very clear constitutional responsibility, because it is not often that the Assembly of Albania is confronted with requests of this nature from justice institutions. Precisely because such cases are rare, our responsibility in this specific instance is extraordinarily great.

We are speaking of a member of this Parliament, in respect of a criminal offence which must follow the course of all criminal proceedings of this nature currently in the hands of Albanian justice — not only the Special Prosecution, but the justice institutions more broadly.

Thank you very much.