
A month after considering the complaints of the Muslim Community for several articles and points of the law "On the treatment of properties and the termination of transitory processes of ownership", the Constitutional Court has decided to leave this law in force.
"The Constitutional Court, after considering the request and claims presented by the applicant, as well as the objections of the interested entities, the Assembly of Albania, the Council of Ministers and the Property Handling Agency, at the end of the examination of the case today, on 13.02.2024 , by majority vote and unanimously for one claim, decided to dismiss the claim. Likewise, the Court decided to remove the measure of suspension of the implementation of articles 1, point 2 and 2, points 1 and 2, of law no. 77/2022", says the decision published yesterday.
Less than 30% of the Muslim Community's properties have been returned or compensated over the years, while it was claimed that the changes made in the law affect about 160 other applications, which risk having a negative value, or being considered exhausted. Among other things, the Muslim Community of Albania had also objected to an article of the law approved in 2022, in which it is determined that the indexation of the compensation invoice will be done until the moment of publication of the value of the compensation and not until the moment of the execution of the as recommended by the Strasbourg Court.
The Constitutional Court, after considering the request and claims presented by the petitioner, as well as the objections of the interested entities, the Assembly of Albania, the Council of Ministers and the Property Management Agency, decided by majority vote to dismiss the request.
At the beginning of November 2023, after accepting the request for review by the Constitutional Court, the Property Handling Agency through a statement pointed out that the review process for 7,000 unprocessed files was suspended, while there was a risk of burning the allocated fund for this year which was calculated at the value of 2.340 billion ALL.
According to official data, from the entry into force of the revised law in 2015 until the end of 2023, 812 families have been compensated with a fund of about ALL 7.9 billion, while 717 hectares of land have been distributed from the physical fund.