There is a question that in a normal state should have been answered on the first day: what is the Republican Guard doing at the entrance to a courthouse?
Because this is not an aesthetic issue. It is not even a protocol issue. It is a constitutional issue.
In a completely inexplicable way, after the inspections of the so-called “Xhafaj Commission” in the GJKKO building, the Guard of the Republic appeared on its outer perimeter. Little by little, the Guard was no longer left outside. Today, it also controls the entrance to the court, checks citizens, lawyers and imposes restrictions on entry to the courtroom.
But by what law?
Who made the decision for a military unit to replace civil security or even the State Police in administering the order of a court?
The Guard of the Republic is not the police. The Guard is an armed formation, with a completely different status, training and powers. It was created to protect the highest personalities of the state and the institutions where they exercise their functions. It also performs ceremonial duties, but above all it remains a force that the law provides with much broader powers for the use of weapons than the State Police.
In short: The Guard has soldiers. The Police has police officers. The difference is not terminological. It is the philosophy of the state.
Then the questions become even more serious.
What extraordinary danger exists in the GJKKO that the State Police cannot handle?
Who so seriously threatened public order that the government was forced to place the Guard at the disposal of a court?
And if there is no such danger, why was the entry of an institution that, according to the Constitution, conducts public trials militarized?
We're not talking about security here anymore. We're talking about competencies.
How can a soldier be mandated to search a lawyer or even a prosecutor and forbid them from carrying their mobile phone, their work tool?
Since when are the administrative rules of the courtroom enforced by the Republican Guard? What does a court need when the rules are made by a soldier at its door?!
Since when does an armed unit decide who enters and who does not enter a public hearing?
The rules of the courtroom are set by the judge, within the powers granted to him by procedural law. They are not set by the administration at will. Much less by a military force.
And this is where the big problem begins.
A court is not a barracks. It is not a military unit. It is not a secret military facility. It is the place where the citizen confronts the state and where the public has the right to pursue justice on their behalf.
When the Garda controls entry, when the public is obstructed, when even the parties in the process are subject to restrictions that do not clearly stem from the law, then the inevitable question arises:
Can this court still be called public?
In fact, this story is a symptom of a larger disease: the state is being governed according to the mood of the day.
When the mood is good, institutions do whatever they want. When the mood is bad, they start showing each other their "competences."
The same logic was used with salaries. The laws were made in good humor. Then, when the conflict came, everyone showed their competence. Everyone talks about their "bag"...
This is not a rule of law. It is emotional administration of power.
And the ending is always the same.
The state is lost.
The law is lost.
The audience is lost.
Because when the state begins to militarize the spaces of justice without a clear legal explanation, its authority is not strengthened. On the contrary, its legitimacy is weakened.
And when legitimacy is replaced by force, hooliganism takes heart. It curses, insults, threatens, blocks because it feels free and that there is no one to stop it. The state has problems with itself...
This does not show state culture.
It shows a state that, instead of the law, is being guided by the mood of the day.