RECORD/ Old man prepares to cross the Atlantic alone, the nation is moved

 Kliko këtu për të tjera
Voxpress:

The Bani Regulation, the defibrillator that cannot pace (un)open trials

2026-08-08 15:37:04Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA YLLI MANJANI
Lawyer Ylli Manjani and head of the GJKKO, Erjon Bani

In fact, Erjon Bani did not make any inventions with the new regulation. He wrote on paper, more or less, what is happening all day today at the GJKKO.

Journalists are not allowed to film inside the courtroom or communicate with the outside world during the hearing. They are placed in the same regime as ordinary listeners, who, it must be said, are very few in number.

So, the regulation regulates the way trials are conducted today. But it does not answer the fundamental question: are trials truly open to the public?

Because there are some things that this regulation doesn't say anything about. I believe it has neither the duty nor the opportunity to say it.

First, it says nothing about closed trials in the consulting room, where a decision can be made about a person's freedom, property, or privacy without him ever being questioned, sometimes not even once. There we don't simply have a problem with the presence of journalists. We have a problem with the very concept of an open and adversarial process.

Secondly, it says nothing about the armored cages, used in a senseless manner and, in many cases, in a way that affects the dignity of the defendant and actually makes it difficult for him to communicate with the defense. This is an unresolved debate all day today.

Third, it says nothing about cases where judicial decision-making seems to be subject to the organization of the Prison Police and not to the authority of the judge, who should be the master in the courtroom. Security is necessary, but it cannot be turned into the administration of justice by structures whose only duty is to guarantee it.

Fourth, it does not solve the problem of the public's right to be informed faithfully about what is said in the courtroom by both sides. The public has the right to hear not only the prosecution's version, which is often served as spin news, but also the defense's version.

Fifth, it does not address an even more disturbing phenomenon: the extraction of investigative and judicial materials outside of the criminal context, to then use them to build a people's trial outside the courtroom.

This is paradoxical.

The regulation simply puts on paper what happens today, under the pretext of security in the courtroom.

But security in the GJKKO halls is, in general, very good. And it's not like we've seen any epidemic of incidents that would justify closing the process to the public.

The real problem has been and remains another:

How can we enable the public to be informed about the truth of what happens in court?

The regulation is silent here.

And I can't say more, because this problem is not solved by an administrative regulation.

Technology can solve it.

For example, installing official cameras in courtrooms, with controlled streaming over the internet, would be a much bigger change than this regulation. It would solve two problems at once: security and transparency.

There would be less need for the physical presence of dozens of people in the hall and, at the same time, much more opportunity for the public to follow what happens directly.

Because the principle of an open trial is not based on the public's need to see pictures of VIP witnesses' butts, nor on videos of VIPs looking like they're on a catwalk.

fashion before the court, nor from footage secretly captured by journalists in an attempt to make a news story.

Open trial is based on the public's need to know the truth of people who are legally placed under oath and to hear what is alleged and disputed in the courtroom.

Not the truths secretly suggested to people under investigation.

Criminal law is part of public law. For this reason, it requires, at a minimum, the attention of the public interest. Even the parties to the criminal process exercise their functions in an environment that is always public.

Therefore, the more the process is removed from public attention, the more it risks taking on the appearance of a private matter. Criminal justice cannot resemble Cuban justice.

Of course, there are special cases where limiting publicity is necessary. The testimony of a minor, matters of an intimate nature or other similar circumstances may require special protection.

But these are exceptions.

The basis of adjudication in the courtroom is openness to the public interest.

While what is happening today is a bit grotesque: journalists cannot film what happens in the courtroom, but try to find a secretly taken photograph, a video shot in the hallway, a shot of a witness or a defendant outside the courtroom.

This is not information.

And even less is it an open trial.

The Bani Regulation, therefore, does not open the courts. It simply reopens the debate about closed courts and, with it, the debate about popular courts that take place outside the courtroom.

Erjon Bani cannot solve this. Neither can the Supreme Court.

This must be resolved by the Parliament of the Republic with a new law.

A law that, first and foremost, clearly establishes the principle of opening the trial in the courtroom, while also defining the modern way of informing the public about what happens there.

Because justice cannot be reduced to a portal, a podcast, or an anonymous social media page, where the public receives snippets of the process from sources that no one controls.

The court should be the first, direct and reliable source of what happens in court.

Otherwise, we have everything else: news, versions, leaks, videos, comments, popular trials.

We just don't have an open trial.


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

Video

SHIKO KANALIN NE YOUTUBE
×