Albania High Court Battling Backlog of Cases

Albania High Court Chief Justice Xhezair Zaganjori | Photo by : LSA

Zaganjori told reporters that during 2014, the Supreme Court had managed to hear all the cases registered between 2007 and 2011.

“The civil-administrative panel is now reviewing cases registered in 2012 and the criminal panel, those registered in 2013,” he explained.

“With this pace, we expect that in the first six months of 2015 the administrative panel will start hearing the cases from 2013 and the criminal panel, the cases registered in 2014,” Zaganjori added.

Statistical data published by the Court show that 6,698 cases were registered with the Supreme Court in 2014, which was 1,313 more cases than in the previous calendar year.

Over the past year, the Supreme Court heard 6,448 cases, but a backlog of 11,357 cases remains left over from previous years.

Zaganjori noted that although an effort was being made to restrict the number of cases that can appealed to the Supreme Court, dealing with the existing backlog would be one of the key challenges of 2015.

“As part of the reform of the justice sector, the Supreme Court will introduce proposals and recommendations to improve the work of the court and reduce the backlog,” he concluded.