Albania bars criminals convicted for serious crimes from voting

The Albanian government decided to bar the criminals convicted for serious crimes from voting, local media reported Friday.

The serious crimes were those such as murder, pedophilia, kidnapping, prostitution, terror, genocide crimes, drug or weapons trafficking, power abuse and corruption,the report said.

The decision came as part of the decriminalization procedure.

General Director of the Civil Registration Bledar Doracaj told local media on Friday that a special group will be established in cooperation with the Prisons Directory to exchange information with people affected by the law.

According to him, this law also requests courts to send the special group a copy of the verdicts so that it can rearrange electoral records and remove the convicts who have committed serious crimes from the voters list.

The law will affect around 2,000 people who are still serving sentences for these crimes, Doracaj said.

Although such measure is seen as a way to eradicate the influence of these criminals on voting results, many electoral experts here have objected to this decision, calling it an unprecedented decision made in the history of Albania.

EU Ambassador to Albania Romana Vlahutin said Friday that banning prisoners from voting is a bad interpretation of the decriminalization law.

The Albanian parliament adopted in late December 2015 the decriminalization law and the constitutional amendments necessary for its enforcement which aimed at removing persons implicated in a crime from public office.

Under this law, an official found guilty of corruption is banned from holding public office for 20 years, while those convicted of offences resulting in jail terms of two years or under, will be barred for 10 years.

According to the government sources, the main goal of the decriminalization law was to bolster the fight against corruption and enhance integrity among public officials. Endit