Human Rights Protection in Albania

The current Albanian Constitution was approved and entered into force in 1998 1 , since a precedent attempt of constitutional referendum was rejected by the majority of people in 1994. The Albanian constituent Assembly, assisted by experts provided by the Council of Europe, for what concerns the question of the relationship between international and internal law has tried to be as clear as possible. In particular, in the first part of the Constitution regarding the basic principles of the Albanian legal system, the validity of general international law is recognized in direct and automatic way2. According to this «solution», the international law binding upon the State is composed, besides internationally recognized general rules (principles and customs), even by treaty law. If, at first sight, this equalization between treaty norms and International general norms (principles and customs) could bring to any apparent confusion, in truth it should be interpreted as a clear and precise choice of the Constitutional legislator in order to guarantee a greater protection extending, exactly, even to the treaty obligations the same Constitutional protection granted to the general international law. This «equality» of strengthened Constitutional treatment should not be realized as an attempt of equalization of international treaty law with general international law (considering that hardly could be reached this goal by mean of internal legislative techniques or methods); instead, it should be seen as a further corollary guarantee that the constituent decided to grant to international treaty law binding upon the State. Anyway, considerable part of the Albanian doctrine influenced by ‹kelsenian› pure normativism sustains that the dictation of art. 5 of the Albanian Constitution is to be interpreted in a sense that it should include not only international treaty law, but also general accepted rules of international law, customs and principles (sic!)3; inevitably a basic objection emerges. It concerns the conception this doctrine has in regard with the nature of international law itself, as it considers international treaty law the milestone of international law without giving proper importance and place to general international law (principles and customs)4. Apart the glaring doctrinaire and methodic confusion of this position inasmuch