Prime Minister Edi Rama said on his podcast Flasim that the Constitutional Court’s decision to lift the suspension of Belinda Balluku eliminated a dangerous precedent in which a judge attempted to take over the powers of the government.

Referring to the new justice system, Rama said there is a need for inter-institutional reflection, as he addressed the request by the judges’ association to increase their salaries—an effort which, according to him, once again represents an attempt to seize competencies and interfere with the state budget.

“…Unfortunately, not for the first time but for the second time, they want to once again take over the powers of the government and parliament, showing not only the elected officials but the voters themselves that above their will and beyond the constitutional boundaries between powers, stand they—the black robes of Albania—with the supreme power of the hammer of justice, now independent from politics. And that hammer, which the Republic has entrusted to them in its highest interest of equal justice for all, they can use whenever they wish to violently pry open the state budget and raise their own salaries—by as much as an additional €1,600 per month for ordinary courts and prosecutor’s offices, and €3,100 more per month for the Special Court and SPAK.

An Italian proverb says, ‘due indizi non fanno una prova’—two indications do not constitute proof—which today, if you look at how people are accused in our political and media arena, constitute not one conviction but two.

But I will in no way follow the flawed logic of conviction based on indications, even in this case. I will remain convinced that these two deeply concerning indications do not prove that the protagonists of judicial independence have lost their heads and become convinced that they are the state, the law, and justice,” Rama said.