Fiks Fare denounced a serious scandal at the Magistrates' School, where candidates for future judges and prosecutors freely enter and exit exams.
They are suspected of copying theses and exam keys in the hallways, while they have complete freedom throughout the class. Instead of staying in their seats, candidates enter and leave the room, while holding papers in their hands with strong suspicions that they also have the answers to the exam questions.
The new scandal comes a few months after the entrance exam scandal, which took place last summer. At that time, the equipment that corrected the tests broke down, while there was also much debate about a multitude of problems and suspicions about changing the list of winners.
Magistrate exams, halls like "inn without doors"
Meanwhile, in recent days, the editorial office of the investigative show received information, accompanied by a video, about the exam on June 30, 2024. On this date, the exam was held for two subjects, Criminal Law and Civil Law.
"These exams were conducted on a computer. On this day, two internal professors of the School were members of the commission. In the first phase, the thesis on criminal law/criminal procedure was developed and in the second part, civil law/civil procedure," the complaint stated.
According to her, the candidates were divided into the halls of the School, where before the end of the regular time, the pedagogue member of the examination commission for the criminal law/criminal procedural subject announced the key to solving the thesis and posted it in the School premises: in the corridors and near the School secretariat. At the end of the regular time, the candidates were taken out of the halls where they were taking the exam and were taken out into the corridor.
The complaint continued that the candidates were free to move around the school corridors and then entered the halls, sat down on their laptops to print their thesis. From the cameras placed in the halls, many irregular behaviors of the candidates were noticed, who after seeing the solution key, tried to adjust their previously drafted answers as much as possible.
Video - scandal, "copied" students of the Magistrate's Office!
Fiksi also exclusively provided a video of Hall No. 5 of the Magistrates' School. According to the video, some of the candidates who competed in this exam are seen moving freely on this exam day. In fact, one of them with the initials DK, entered and left the hall freely.
The video clearly shows that the candidate was taken from his seat and left the room at 10:41 on June 30, 2024. He re-entered the room at 10:43 and after staying in the room for a few moments, at 10:45 he sat down in his seat and began to write. He wrote until 10:49 and left the room again, taking with him a sheet of paper containing the thesis questions.
In the video, it appears that he returned to the room at 11:07:50 and sat down at his seat at 11:08:48. He started writing and printed out the thesis he had worked on on the computer at 11:10 and put it in an envelope. At 11:11, he appears to take out the sheet of questions from his pocket that he had taken with him when he left the room at 10:49. He started writing while looking at the notes on it. He finally printed it at 11:15, took out the thesis he had printed before and put back in the one he had printed recently.
Magistrate's Office: We excluded 5 candidates, they copied...
Fiksi inquired for several days at the Magistrates' School, but none of the leaders agreed to give an interview and analyze the footage. Then, Fiksi asked this school several questions, whether they are allowed to move freely, even go to the corridors where the correct answers are, come inside the hall and fill in the envelope with the correct answers?! And as it seemed in those footage, all the candidates move freely.
In response, the School of Magistrates says that in the academic year 2023-2024 there were 5 disciplinary proceedings, 1 from the first year and 4 from the second year. These candidates have been expelled from the school. According to it, after the expulsion, anonymous e-mails have arrived, with accusations, blackmailing and insulting language about the School and the candidates.
The School itself admits that the theses and test answers were printed and published on the School's premises, but denies the possibility that candidates accessed, used, or made changes to the theses.
"It has been verified that this consequence has not occurred. The time when the answer key is expected to have been printed and published is a time when candidates were in the halls printing," the response states. However, the footage published by Fiksi, of the security cameras in hall no. 5, shows the complete opposite!
The Magistrate's Office admits that some excluded candidates used external materials for the purpose of completing exam questions, such as USBs and phones.
"Some of them have completed the exam for the first subject, printed it, continued the exam for the second subject, and at the moment of printing the exam for the second subject, they have reprinted the corrected thesis of the first subject, using lies to the administrative staff. They have acted sporadically, have communicated with each other, have revised and re-corrected parts of their answers, in that narrow space of time that they have found possible to intervene," the Magistrate continues.
But in the end, says the School, it was not considered reasonable that these were serious violations!
School: Candidate DK left the hall, but he didn't cheat!
In the case of candidate DK, where Fiksi also has film footage, the School of Magistrates says that he is also a member of the Disciplinary Commission elected by the Assembly of Candidates for Magistrates.
"All verifications regarding his behavior in the exam on June 30 and July 1, 2024 have been completed. From these verifications it results that he acted under the same conditions as many other candidates. He left the exam hall, by order of the responsible lecturer of the subject, and re-entered the hall with the aim of printing the exam thesis," the response states.
But wasn't the "key" to the exam outside the hall?!
"We clarify that, at the moment the candidates left the room, they were instructed to make final changes to the thesis at the moment it was to be printed. The purpose of being removed from the room was to unify the end time of the exam. Re-entering the room is related to the opportunity to print the thesis, place it in an envelope and submit it. Because the room had 1 printer available, this means that the time and order of printing are determined at that moment by the School's administrative staff," adds the School.
The Magistrate's Office admits that candidates for judges, prosecutors, advisors and legal assistants moved freely in the School's premises, where the answers to the test questions were also published. A serious violation of the entire selection process, since the persons who gained the right to become magistrates "will speak on behalf of the Republic and the State."
Finally, regarding the distribution of the footage, the Magistrate's Office says it is verifying whether the footage is authentic or edited, while stating that it has filed a criminal report with the Tirana Prosecutor's Office.