The 'ghost' Commission of Appeal/ Tirana Municipality is silent

2024-11-22 23:24:00, Denoncim CNA

In two Piranja puntatas, we have shown you how the Appeals Committee in the Municipality of Tirana, set up by a decision of the Municipal Council on December 21, 2018, has never met and has not functioned for a single day! Regarding this matter, in order to obtain information about the Commission's work, we have sent a total of 7 requests for information to the Municipality and filed a complaint with the Commissioner for the Right to Information, but we still have no answer.

The Municipality of Tirana has shown itself to be hermetic, and not at all cooperative for an information that it has a legal obligation to provide. Faced with the silence of the Municipality of Tirana and the lack of transparency from this institution, we went from writing to confronting those responsible, with the hope that things would become clear to us. But again no answer.

First, we faced the director of the Legal Directorate of Assets and Licensing in the Municipality of Tirana, Mr. Alban Dokushi. The latter again shied away from responsibility and did not provide answers to the questions we had asked.

What is the Local Taxes and Fees Appeal Commission? More precisely what it should have been, because in five years it has been only a ghost in which no citizen has found salvation. If you receive a fine from the municipal police, if you are taxed or charged unfairly, if you are penalized and you think that an injustice is being done to you by an organ of the Municipality of Tirana, the Appeals Committee examines your complaints. If the complaint is found to be correct, then the penalty imposed in the form of a fine or other administrative measure is removed.

The 'ghost' Commission of Appeal/ Tirana Municipality is silent

Municipality of Tirana

So, the commission was supposed to be a kind of appellate court, where those who do not agree with the decisions of the structures of the City Hall of the capital, could turn to it, in the hope that when the case is examined, they will find justice. As I told you above, after many requests filed in the Municipality of Tirana, we did not receive a response either to the meetings or to the decisions made over the years by the Appeals Committee, and even the names of the members were not made available to us.

According to decision number 158 of December 2018 of the Municipal Council, the Commission consists of 5 members, where the mayor is one of the vice mayors of the municipality and the members are made up of representatives of the Legal Department, that of Local Taxes and Fees and that of Planning and Territorial Development. The Mayor together with these directorates are responsible for the implementation of this decision.

The names of the members of the Appeals Commission, which did not function for a full 5 years, the Municipality refused to make available to us, while there is only the order of the Mayor Erion Veliaj, who once again made appointments to this body, only a few months ago. seen on the date of May 8 of this year, putting new members: Mrs. Jonida Halili as president, Edlira Koçon, Boriana Vrushon, Lindita Trojën and Eva Osmanin.

The Mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj

Meanwhile, for the old commission, we asked to learn something from one of the former members, currently a deputy in the Parliament of Albania, Mr. Arbjan Mazniku. But again no answer, for the old members of the "ghost" Commission of Appeal.

Although we have two full episodes in which we seek to find the reasons that have held hostage thousands of citizens and businesses that have complaints against this structure, no one tells us the names of the members officially, nor the reason why the decision of the Municipal Council, body of voted by the citizens of Tirana!

One may think that there are no losers from the dysfunction of this commission, but on the contrary, we will explain that the only losers in the meantime are the citizens and businesses in Tirana.

Think if we had no Court of Appeals at all and every decision made by a judge in the first instance was final! The same happens with the Appeals Commission, where any decision on a fine by the municipal police, the territory protection inspectorate, the consumer agency or the fines imposed on businesses by the local tax and toll department cannot be appealed! Even worse, the municipality says you should file a complaint, you send it and wait, but you never get an answer.

This creates financial costs for citizens, who, tired of red tape, agree to pay the penalty, while for businesses that have more severe fines, going through the link of the Appeals Commission is mandatory before filing a lawsuit in court. The penalty must be prepaid or a bank guarantee left and only after 60 days that there is no response from the Commission, they have the right to go to court.

Municipality of Tirana

We asked two of the members who should be responsible for the functioning of the Appeals Commission, but a question that naturally arises is whether the mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj, is also responsible here? Law; "On Local Self-Government" provides as one of the main powers of the Mayor "Implementation of acts and decisions of the Municipal Council" and according to this article the mayor has the duty to supervise the administrative structures of the municipality and ensure their functioning; as well as take measures for the management of human and financial resources of the municipality.

Therefore, the decision of the Municipal Council taken in December 2018 determines that the first person who should make possible the implementation of this decision is the mayor.

For 5 years, the Appeals Commission has not functioned and why the appointments of its members were made by the chairman, but he should still have the duty to make it functional, since 5 years is too long and exceeds the period of a the full mandate of the management of a local unit.

Such a situation casts doubt that the mayor Erion Veliaj has misused his office as he has not fulfilled his mission charged by law to monitor and ensure that the structures set up within the municipality function respecting the will of the sovereign represented by the Municipal Council!/ Syri .com