The Center for Transparency and Free Information (CTFI) welcomes the government's decision to significantly reduce court fees for citizens of all categories through the amendment of the joint instruction of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Finance of March 2010
The Center for Transparency and Free Information (CTFI) welcomes the government's decision to significantly reduce court fees for citizens of all categories through the amendment of the joint instruction of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Finance of March 2010.
The new instruction no. 5668, dt. 20.11.2013 of the two ministries reduces a number of fees and, among other things, the court tax in the case of a claim for causing damage from 3% of the value of the claim to 1% of the value of the claim, as it was in 2002.
Meanwhile, a number of fees have been significantly reduced, which further eases the financial burden of the citizens who need the court, as well as ease their access to the court and its services.
The fees for issuing the certificate that the person does not have a legal obstacle for the equipment with a passport for abroad have been reduced from 400 ALL to 200 ALL; the fee for the issuance by the court of each copy of the decision and any document requested by the interested parties from 800 ALL to 200 ALL; the fee for issuing a certificate of judicial status from the judicial status office from ALL 400 to ALL 200; fees for the legalization of notary acts by the Ministry of Justice from ALL 800 to ALL 200; that for issuing the certificate that no criminal case has been initiated against the citizen by the prosecution from 400 to 200 ALL, fees for issuing the decision to dismiss or the decision not to initiate the criminal case by the prosecution from 800 ALL to 200 ALL; the fee for issuing a certificate from the court that the applicant is not in court proceedings from ALL 400 to ALL 200.
Also, other fees for requests that are submitted to the court, such as that for fact verification, were reduced from 800 ALL to 200 ALL; lawsuit for divorce from 9000 to 3000 ALL; lawsuit for invalidity of legal actions from 12,000 ALL to 3,000 ALL.
For several months, QTIL has been involved in the preparation of these changes and in lobbying the Ministry of Justice to ensure greater access of citizens to the courts through the reduction of court fees. During the month of February 2013, she monitored the trial at the Constitutional Court initiated by the Pogradec court, and for several months she monitored the damage cases at the Tirana court. In the press statement dated August 5, 2013, QTIL has emphasized its suspicions based on monitoring findings that the tariffs that were set through instruction no. 991 of March 2010 have been unfairly influenced by business groups.
CTFI with the financial support of the British Embassy in the framework of the project "Increasing access to justice and improving judicial procedures" submitted in August to the Ministry of Justice a study that argues the need for a rapid reduction of these fees, especially the fees in cases of causing damage.
Also, during the months of May and June, two meetings were held with the Minister of Justice, where the issue of reducing fees was discussed extensively. The Minister of Justice, Eduard Halimi, then declared that after the decision of the Constitutional Court, the change of instruction 991 is a necessity. The Ministry of Justice has started the procedures to change this instruction since the summer of this year.
