The Prime Minister's stale and populist mockery of the "greed" of representatives of the justice system for salaries unimaginable for the ordinary Albanian hides a more bitter truth. Rama is the author of the greed for which he accuses others. This happened when Rama almost doubled the salaries of his trusted ones in the high state administration during the period 2022–2023, without considering that one day the same bill would be paid to the judges. The salaries of the latter are constitutionally linked to those of the directors of the administration.
The crisis we are experiencing today, where tens of millions of euros in salaries are owed to the justice system, stems precisely from this trickery of Rama at the expense of the budget. It also stems from a conceptual weakness of the 2016 reform, where the justice system's salary system was inspired by the American model (which presents risks) instead of the European one.
Therefore, the unprecedented conflict that is paralyzing the judicial system in Albania is not a demand by militant unionists for a salary increase, but a much more complicated clash that needs to be analyzed in detail. It needs to be explained to Albanians why, with their modest incomes, they have to pay extraordinary salaries for justice, which not only no country in the region has, but are a curiosity even more widely in Europe.
The Genesis of the Problem: The Great Promise of 2016 and Rama's Subsequent Deceit
To understand this crisis, we must go back to July 2016, when the Albanian Parliament, under the strict monitoring of the European Union and the United States, approved the historic Justice Reform. The Constitution was amended to include, among other things, an article, Article 138, which states as a principle that: “The salary and other benefits of a judge cannot be reduced” (except in cases of national economic crises or moves from the position of a judge).
The Constitution does not go into detail on what basis a judge is paid. This is done by the organic law, which has the force of a constitutional law. In the French case, for example, as in most European countries, this organic law (of 1958) has specifically provided for a table of salary levels for the justice system, which is unrelated to the salary system of other civil servants. That is, if the salaries of other civil servants are raised, this does not affect those of the justice system and vice versa. The US has it differently. Salaries in the justice system are a function of salaries in the administration or the salaries of elected officials. It is precisely this American system that was imported to Albania through Organic Law No. 96/2016, which determined that the salary of a magistrate (judge, prosecutor) is based on that of a senior civil servant of the category of director of a department in the Prime Minister's Office. In real terms, this translated as follows: the reference salary for a junior judge (First Instance, that is, the lowest in justice) was equal to the salary of the highest official in the Albanian administration, that of a Department Director in the Prime Minister's Office, or at that time about 132,100 new lekë.
This minimum salary in the judiciary increased according to a series of coefficients if the judge worked in the courts of appeal, in SPAK or in GJKKO, as well as if the judge had years of seniority in the job, professional risk, etc. This system worked until Rama decided to pull a crude trick. He decided to increase the salaries of senior civil servants for clientelism, especially since inflation gripped the Albanian economy as well as the international one after two consecutive crises: COVID and the war in Ukraine.
Some high salaries in Rama's administration almost doubled. This should have been automatically translated, according to the law in force (96/2016), with a similar increase in salaries in the justice system, which were inextricably linked to the salaries of the Albanian senior administration. Rama's trick consisted in the fact that the salary increase in the administration was not considered a salary, but a bonus. The bonus has the characteristic of being related to a temporary performance and is translated as a reward for a good job, but not as a basic salary. However, if the bonus were to remain in the salary for a long time, as it happened, then it would no longer be called a bonus but a salary, and the judges would denounce this charade. To silence himself and allow himself to later increase the salaries of his favorites in the administration, Rama decided without any hesitation in 2023 to amend Organic Law 96/2016, which he himself had previously approved on the salaries of judges. With the new law, the salaries of judges are no longer linked to those of the directors of departments in the Prime Minister's office. That is, Rama can legally increase his own salaries from now on without being forced to do the same with the judges. Rama's parliament set the salary of the President of the Republic as the new salary reference for judges.
At first glance, judges and prosecutors would have been the winners, since the President’s salary is over three times higher than the highest salary in the administration (around 450,000 new lek compared to 132,000 new lek). But Rama’s trick was even more sophisticated: not the entire President’s salary, but only a little more than a third of it (36%) would serve as the basis for the judges’ salary (i.e. around 156,800 basic lek). With this maneuver, Rama left the salaries of judges and prosecutors almost where they were and had a free hand to engage in clientelism with the salaries of department directors in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Rama was thus taking the judges for fools. The facts were stubborn. In 2023, compared to 2016, directors' salaries had in some cases doubled, while judges had remained stuck at their 2016 salaries. Although the President's salary was now used as a reference, this was only taken as a basis for a third of it, or more precisely, 36%.
The other advantage of this diabolical maneuver for Rama was that he did not even bother to later increase the President's salary, an honorary position in Albania. That is, it would be unlikely that the salaries of judges would also increase one day. An extremely well-thought-out and sophisticated fraud scheme. The exact same problem, not fraud but a disadvantage for justice, has also appeared in the USA, where salaries in the judiciary are linked to those in the administration or to the salaries of politicians elected to the government. For populism, promises are made in the campaign that the salaries of elected officials will no longer increase, and judges also become hostage to this promise. This is a phenomenon that does not occur in Europe, where the salary system in the judiciary is not linked to the salary system in other corps (politicians, senior administration, etc.).
The counterattack of judges who reach and win in the Constitutional Court
To repel the Prime Minister's cunning maneuver, the judges — and then the Constitutional Court that completely ruled in their favor — relied on the meaning of Article 138 of the Constitution, which determines, as we have seen, that the salary of a judge cannot be reduced. But, with Rama's tricks that raised the salaries of directors while forgetting those of judges, the salaries of the latter are consequently considered to have been reduced in relation to the level they should have been if they were based, according to the law, on the salaries of directors.
Moreover, for these judges (and the Constitutional Court's decision of February 2026 was right), not only should their salaries be increased exactly like those of Rama's directors — that is, almost doubled — but in addition, they should be paid to judges and prosecutors for all these years when salaries had not increased, which constitutes an arrears of tens of millions of euros.
The judges are not satisfied with that. They also consider as illegal the change of the law at will by Rama in 2023, when he set the reference for the salary of a judge at 36% of the President's salary. The 2016 justice reform law was more advantageous for judges, as it referred to 100% of the highest salary in the administration, that of the director of the department in the Prime Minister's office, which increases while the President's salary does not increase or increases very little.
On this point too, the Constitutional Court upheld the judges' appeal. According to the final decision of the Constitutional Court, starting from August 1, 2026, the following consequences will occur:
a) The government should increase the salaries of the justice system to the same extent as those of senior directors;
b) To pay judges and prosecutors every penny of the salary increase since this actually began several years ago for senior civil servants as a bonus;
c) To declare invalid the new reference of 2023 with 36% of the President's salary. The legal reference for salaries in the justice sector remains Law 96/2016, namely the full salary of a department director in the Prime Minister's Office.
It's a total victory for the judges. Will Rama accept it?
Rama's reaction and his new strategy
This Sunday we witnessed a fierce verbal counterattack from the Prime Minister, who spoke from the car as if it were a podcast topic and not a substantive institutional debate. On the one hand, Rama attacked with the ugliest expressions the justice personnel in the KLGJ and KLP who sued the government for salary increases, treating them as: “two images of the dark side of the justice reform medal, two bodies overloaded with people, salaries, expenses, but with a productivity that leaves much to be desired”.
On the other hand, Rama attacked the Constitutional Court that ruled in favor of the judges, treating it as if it were in a conflict of interest: "I just want to say how disturbing, how ugly, how vulgar the atmosphere created by a conflict of powers is... There is a party that has this interest."
In all likelihood, Rama's majority on September 17 is expected to confront the parliament and the judiciary with a fait accompli by keeping the reference for judges' salaries to the President's salary, with an improvement of only 2% (from 36% to 38%). So, there will be neither payment of arrears for judges nor a return to the salary reference that the justice reform established. This reform was based on the salary of the director of the department in the Prime Minister's office and not the partial salary of the President of the Republic, an invention of Rama.
With this new legislative maneuver that he will make on September 17, Rama thinks he will throw it at the Constitutional Court because it shows that he is more or less increasing the salaries of judges (the reference goes from 36% to 38% of the President's salary), but without paying the arrears of tens of millions of euros. It is unlikely that the Constitutional Court will close its eyes. Its decisions are legally unquestionable, which means that the average salary increase in the judiciary should not be 2%, but 51%!
conclusion
Here's how in a decade, due to an initial erroneous reform of the justice system's salary system, to which were added the cunning maneuvers of Edi Rama, we today reach salaries of up to 10 thousand euros in the justice system in Albania. In North Macedonia and Montenegro the highest equivalent salary does not exceed 1,500 euros, not to mention neighboring EU countries such as Greece and Slovenia where 5-digit salaries in euros do not exist in the justice system.
And for what results? After the unsolvable cadastral bomb, Rama leaves this country with the financial bomb of judicial salaries for life. Albanians will be forced to pay the highest tax in the world for justice, but at least they will have a compensation: that the political leaders of the crap be held accountable before justice. Let it be made a law, that the increase in judicial salaries include the seizures and financial penalties that the justice system operates on the political thief system in Albania, including seizures from drug trafficking. Justice should be rewarded with the fruits of its work. When will the request for lifting the immunity of the former Deputy Prime Minister be made? When will the questioning of the Prime Minister on the numerous scandals that have shocked and continue to shock public opinion be made? Justice demands the salaries that the Constitution guarantees, but the people also demand justice, an equally good right inscribed in the same Constitution. Let us be inspired by the American expression, win-win, in the Justice – People relationship...
