It is 3:40 p.m. on October 6, 2025. A judge at the Court of Appeal in Tirana is reading a verdict. Seconds later three shots ring out in the courtroom, hitting the judge at the bench and sending people fleeing in panic. Astrit Kalaja, 62, later succumbs to his injuries.
The ruling Kalaja was reading out concerned a property dispute dating back to 1992, a case that had moved through Albania’s courts for more than three decades without final resolution. The man who pulled the trigger was 30-year-old Elvis Shkambi. Police said he opened fire after the court ruling went against his family — a ruling he later described as “scandalous” and the result of years of injustice over his family’s property.
Reform without precedent
The killing came nearly 10 years after Albania launched a program of reform intended to rebuild trust and combat corruption in the judiciary. In July 2016, parliament voted unanimously for constitutional amendments that set the course for the reform — a rare consensus welcomed by the European Union and the United States.
At the heart of the reform was a strict vetting process: a comprehensive review of the assets, integrity and professional conduct of every judge and prosecutor in the country. “Corrupt judges and prosecutors will be removed from the justice system by the vetting process,” Prime Minister Edi Rama vowed at the time. Legal scholar Alban Koci called it “the first of its kind in the world,” designed to protect citizens from corruption, restore the dignity of judges and rebuild trust in the justice system.
But the scale and speed of change quickly revealed limits. The reform reshaped the judiciary in ways the system was ill-equipped to absorb.
From clean-up to collapse
The vetting process removed judges faster than they could be replaced: around 65% of judges and prosecutors were dismissed in the first five years. As vetting moved up the hierarchy, it paralysed the country’s highest courts, leaving Albania without a functioning Constitutional Court and a High Court for nearly two years. The reform also consolidated the judicial map, closing or merging roughly 20 courts nationwide.
The combined effect was a system operating at severely reduced capacity. According to the Ombudsman’s 2024 annual report, Albania has just 9.8 judges per 100,000 inhabitants — roughly half the European average. Koci argues that European standards were applied to a justice system that could not support them.
Growing backlog
Backlogs grew and the consequences became visible. At the Court of Appeal alone, more than 45,800 cases have been carried over since 2017. The court currently operates with about 40 judges — just over half of the 78 positions foreseen under its official structure.
For citizens this has meant years of waiting. “The judicial map shifted the burden onto the public,” Koci says. “If a case once took three years to resolve, today the average is 15 years.”
For years cameras have been stationed outside Albania’s Special Prosecution Office against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK), the reform’s flagship institution. SPAK’s investigations into senior political figures came to symbolize the promise of accountability. Yet SPAK handles roughly 3% of all criminal cases, focusing on high-level corruption and organised crime. The remaining 97% — civil disputes, family law, administrative claims and everyday criminal matters — are handled by ordinary courts.
Constant strain on Albania’s courts
A few metres from SPAK’s modern headquarters, the Criminal Chamber of the Tirana Court operates in a building once used as a dormitory for special police forces, converted into a courtroom in 2010 but never designed to be the country’s busiest criminal court. Gerd Hoxha, who has served at the court for 23 years and is now its deputy head and chair of the Union of Judges, describes a system under constant strain.
“My court today lacks security staff and court clerks,” Hoxha says. “I have repeatedly requested additional personnel, including at least 80 legal assistants to support the work of the court.” Working conditions have become a legal and political issue: judges have taken cases to the Constitutional Court arguing that rulings on salaries and employment conditions have not been properly enforced. Prime Minister Rama has publicly dismissed judges’ demands, saying their pay already exceeds that of judges in several neighbouring countries. Judges say such rhetoric adds to an already tense climate. “A judge who does not feel safe cannot work calmly,” Hoxha adds. “And a judge who cannot work calmly cannot deliver impartial justice.”
Citizens at the end of the process
For most citizens the reform’s effects are felt not in headline corruption trials but in the daily work of ordinary courts, where the vast majority of cases are processed. According to Hoxha, a judge may be required to make up to 1,000 rulings a year, a workload that inevitably affects the quality of justice. “Under such pressure, judges are forced to prioritise the cases deemed most urgent for social stability,” he says.
Where to from here?
Justice reform has been central to Albania’s ambition to join the EU. While praised for strengthening the fight against corruption and organised crime, Brussels has stressed that credibility ultimately depends on effective implementation, legal certainty and a judiciary that functions fully and independently.
Asked what could ease the burden on the courts, Koci suggests two measures: reinstate the old judicial map and create temporary judicial panels to deal with the backlog. Hoxha recommends reforming the recruitment process for magistrates, including allowing third-year magistrates to exercise judicial functions under supervision to help cope with current demands.
Hope without legal certainty
For Koci, the reform launched a decade ago raised expectations without delivering legal certainty. “It has given citizens hope, but not guarantees,” he says. “When a legal solution takes three times longer than before, yesterday’s justice was, in practice, more efficient.”
The killing of Judge Astrit Kalaja exposed a system in which justice can take decades to arrive — if it arrives at all. “In such conditions, the meaning of an old legal principle becomes unavoidable: Justice delayed is justice denied,” says Koci.
Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan