At 3:40 p.m. on October 6, 2025, a routine courtroom reading at the Tirana Court of Appeal ended in violence. Judge Astrit Kalaja, 62, was reading a verdict in a property dispute stretching back to 1992 when three shots rang out. The judge was hit at the bench and later died of his wounds. Police said the shooter, 30-year-old Elvis Shkambi, opened fire after the court ruled against his family in a case he later described as the culmination of decades of injustice over their land.
The killing was a grim reminder of the human cost of a justice system still struggling to deliver timely rulings. It came almost ten years after a sweeping reform program was launched in Albania intended to purge corruption, restore trust and bring the judiciary up to European standards. In July 2016, the Albanian parliament unanimously approved constitutional changes that set the course for an unprecedented vetting process. The initiative drew praise from the European Union and the United States and was billed as a comprehensive effort to scrutinise 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 pledged at the time. Legal scholar Alban Koci described the measures as “the first of its kind in the world,” meant to protect citizens from corruption, restore judicial dignity and rebuild public confidence.
But the scale and speed of the overhaul exposed structural weaknesses. The vetting removed officials faster than replacements could be trained and appointed: roughly 65% of judges and prosecutors were dismissed within the first five years. As the process climbed the hierarchy, it paralysed senior institutions — Albania went nearly two years without a functioning Constitutional Court and with an effectively inactive High Court. Around 20 courts were closed or merged as part of a reorganisation of the judicial map.
The result was a justice system operating at greatly reduced capacity. The Ombudsman’s 2024 annual report found Albania has just 9.8 judges per 100,000 inhabitants — about half the European average. Koci argues that European standards were applied to a system that lacked the personnel and infrastructure to meet them, producing gaps between aspiration and reality.
Backlogs ballooned. The Tirana Court of Appeal has carried more than 45,800 cases over since 2017 and now functions with roughly 40 judges, just above half the 78 posts envisioned in its official structure. For ordinary litigants this translated into years, sometimes decades, of waiting. “If a case once took three years to resolve, today the average is 15 years,” Koci says.
The reform did create SPAK, the Special Prosecution Office against Corruption and Organized Crime, which has become the public face of the campaign against high-level wrongdoing. Cameras outside its headquarters symbolise the promise of accountability as SPAK pursues investigations into senior political figures. Yet SPAK handles only about 3% of criminal cases; the other 97% — civil disputes, family law, administrative claims and everyday criminal matters — remain with ordinary courts that are strained and understaffed.
A few metres from SPAK’s modern offices, the Criminal Chamber of the Tirana Court sits in a repurposed dormitory building converted into a courtroom in 2010. Gerd Hoxha, who has worked at the court for 23 years and now serves as its deputy head and chair of the Union of Judges, describes chronic shortages of personnel and resources. “My court today lacks security staff and court clerks,” he says. “I have repeatedly requested additional personnel, including at least 80 legal assistants to support the work of the court.” Judges have taken disputes over salaries and working conditions to the Constitutional Court, arguing that rulings on employment terms have not been properly enforced. Prime Minister Rama has dismissed some judicial complaints publicly, saying judges’ pay is competitive with neighbouring countries — a stance judges say worsens an already tense environment. “A judge who does not feel safe cannot work calmly,” Hoxha adds. “And a judge who cannot work calmly cannot deliver impartial justice.”
For most citizens the reform’s effects are not measured by headline investigations into elites but by delays and reduced quality in ordinary courtrooms. Under severe workloads, judges can be required to issue up to 1,000 rulings a year, forcing them to prioritise cases deemed most urgent for social stability. That triage approach inevitably affects fairness and thoroughness.
Looking ahead, analysts and practitioners suggest practical steps to ease the pressure. Koci proposes reinstating parts of the old judicial map and creating temporary judicial panels tasked with clearing the backlog. Hoxha calls for changes in magistrate recruitment, including allowing third-year magistrates to perform judicial functions under supervision to expand capacity without sacrificing oversight.
Justice reform has been central to Albania’s EU accession ambitions. Brussels has applauded efforts to tackle corruption and organised crime but has repeatedly emphasised that credibility requires effective implementation, legal certainty and a judiciary that operates fully and independently. A system that brings hope but cannot guarantee timely, predictable outcomes risks undermining the very trust the reform sought to restore.
The murder of Judge Kalaja laid bare the stakes: when legal resolution takes decades, the consequences can be tragic. “It has given citizens hope, but not guarantees,” Koci says of the decade-long reform process. “Justice delayed is justice denied.” Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan