Constitutional Appeal

(text translated from Albanian)

I. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE

1. Erion Veliaj is the Mayor of Tirana, democratically elected by the citizens of Tirana. Under his leadership, Tirana has gone through an extraordinary process of revitalization with significant improvements in the quality of life and infrastructure. Over the past ten years, Tirana has been the scene of important political events at the global level, such as the European Union summit, the Western Balkans, as well as sporting activities such as the Giro d'Italia. Mayor Veliaj's work in transforming Tirana into a tolerant, innovative and pluralistic city has helped strengthen Albania's credentials for membership in the European Union. As a testament to his popularity, leadership and service, in 2023 Mayor Veliaj was re-elected for a third consecutive term with an overwhelming victory, with around 160,000 votes.

2. However, on February 10, 2025, President Veliaj was detained by SPAK on unfounded and unspecified (at that stage) allegations of corruption. He has remained detained on these grounds, separated from his wife and six-year-old son, forced to govern from his prison cell with extremely limited instruments, and deprived of full access to legal protection.

3. With the allegation of non-appearance in office of Mr. Veliaj for three months, with the proposal of some of the councilors of the Municipal Council of Tirana, on 23.09.2025, in violation of all procedural guarantees of Mr. Veliaj, the Council of the Municipality of Tirana approved the proposal for the dismissal of Mr. Veliaj from the Council of Ministers. With the decision no. 539, dated 25.09.2025 "On the dismissal from office of the Mayor of Tirana, Mr. Erion Veliaj", but in flagrant violation of the applicant's rights, the Council of Ministers approved the proposal of the Municipal Council of Tirana, deciding the dismissal of Mr. Veliaj. This decision was published in the Official Gazette no. 173, dated 26.09.2025. Still today, the applicant has not been informed of the decision-making and the acts of the procedure subject to trial.

4. Assessing this decision-making completely contrary to the constitutional provisions, we object to the following.

II. LEGITIMACY OF THE APPLICANT

5. The Constitutional Court in its jurisprudence has emphasized that the decision on the dismissal from office of the local government body is an individual act of an administrative nature. In the case of dismissal from office of the local government body, the constitution-maker, in order to give greater guarantees in the exercise of duty to these bodies, in Article 115/2 of the Constitution has provided for their right to appeal directly to the Constitutional Court, as an exception to the general rule, according to which the Court directly examines only the constitutionality of acts of normative character (see decisions no. 32, dated 10.07.2013, no. 23, 3 dated 25.07.2013; No. 15, dated 08.06.2009; no.22, dated 07.10.2008; no. 39, dated 29.12.2005 of the Constitutional Court).

6. This constitutional provision, conceived as a special protection mechanism, gives the elected bodies of local government the right not to first pass through the filter of ordinary courts in such exceptional cases as the premature termination of their mandate, which strips this senior public official of his duties and authority, but to immediately address the Constitutional Court, as the highest guarantor of the constitutional order. In this way, it is ensured that objections to the dismissal from office do not remain hostage to a long and fragmented judicial process, but receive a quick and final solution in the only instance capable of protecting the balance between local autonomy and the fundamental principles of the Constitution.

7. With the proposal of the Municipal Council of Tirana, with the allegation of nonappearance in office of Mr. Veliaj for three months, the Council of Ministers decided to dismiss Mr. Veliaj from the office of the Mayor of Tirana through decision no. 539, dated 25.09.2025, decision which was published in the Official Gazette no. 173, dated 26.09.2025 (published on the official website of the CBC, the next Saturday, 27.09.2025). The jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court has emphasized that Article 115 is a special guarantee for local elected bodies. The Constitutional Court has stated in its jurisprudence that a trial, which has as its object the dismissal from office of local government bodies, is a trial on the basis of the referral and the Constitutional Court, as a control body, in order to assess the serious violation of the Constitution or the law, investigates and adjudicates the case on the merits, just as a court of the ordinary judicial system would act (see decisions no. 15, dated 08.06.2009; no.22, dated 07.10.2008; no. 39, dated 29.12.2005 of the Constitutional Court).

8. As the Constitutional Court has also noted in its jurisprudence, Article 115 of the Constitution regulates the constitutional appeal procedures in cases of dismissal or dissolution of the elected body of the local government unit, but does not use the term "functionary", although the constitutional review procedures under this provision are of an individual nature, as this type of trial has as its object an administrative act of individual character, the constitutionality and legality of which is directly reviewed by this Court (see Decisions No. 25, dated 10.05.2021; No. 32, dated 10.07.2013; No. 37, dated 25.07.2013 of the Constitutional Court). In the Court's assessment, in the case provided by Article 115 of the Constitution, the Constitution-maker did not use the term "functionary", even though it may coincide with the body, because the purpose of this article is to protect local government bodies, which are established and function according to the principles of decentralization of power and local autonomy. This constitutional norm expressly defines the jurisdiction of the Court to control the dismissal of these bodies, which constitutes a special type of constitutional control, which does not refer to cases of ineligibility or 4 incompatibility in the exercise of office, or the election of these officials. (Decision no. 36 dated 04.11.2021 of the Constitutional Court)

9. Based on Article 115 of the Constitution, the Mayor may be dismissed for serious violations of the Constitution or laws and may appeal to the Constitutional Court within 15 days, an appeal which suspends the effects of the decision of the Council of Ministers. (see Decisions No. 15, dated 08.06.2009; No. 22, dated 07.10.2008; No. 39, dated 29.12.2005 of the Constitutional Court) On the basis of this constitutional provision, through the provisions of the law no. 139/2015 "On local self-government", the legislator has assessed to specify two cases of what will be considered a serious violation of the Constitution and laws, through the provisions of letter "b" and "c" of Article 62 of this law, if the Mayor: is convicted of committing a criminal offense, by a final decision, by the court; does not appear in office for an uninterrupted period of 3 months. The legislator himself has determined that this law has also been issued on the basis of and for the implementation of Article 115 of the Constitution. For this reason, the dismissal of the mayor is within the constitutional jurisdiction. Conciliatory interpretation is possible when a law or legal provision can be interpreted in more than one way, one of which is in accordance with the Constitution. This method seeks the constitutional effects of different outcomes and selects the outcome that is in accordance with constitutional values, taking into account the fundamental rights of individuals. (Decision no. 29, dated 31.05.2010 of the Constitutional Court) Conciliatory interpretation is possible when a law or legal provision can be interpreted in more than one way, one of which is in accordance with the Constitution. (Decision no. 5 dated 16.02.2012) Therefore, no other interpretation of the provisions is permissible from the constitutional point of view and that the protection of the above-mentioned constitutional rights and principles cannot be achieved in case these challenged provisions are given a different meaning. (Decision no. 54 dated 09.07.2024 of the Constitutional Court)

10. The lawmaker, by Article 62 of Law no. 139/2015, did not intend to create a new category of dismissal independent of the Constitution, but only to specify some concrete cases that constitute "serious violations of the Constitution or laws", according to Article 115 of the Constitution. This is clearly understood by the way the provision is constructed: the letters "b" and "c" do not go outside the constitutional logic, but serve to break down and concretize the notion of "serious violation". For example, a final criminal conviction (letter "b") is a typical form of serious violation of the law/constitution for an official such as the Mayor; While failure to appear in office for three months (letter "c") constitutes a serious violation if the mayor, without having any objective reason, has voluntarily chosen not to exercise his function. Conversely, when the absence is the result of an objective impossibility or extraordinary circumstances that make it impossible to exercise the function, it cannot be considered a "serious violation" because the law would extend beyond the constitutional framework of Article 115.

11. If the opposite were to be accepted, then we would be dealing with an unconstitutional legal norm, as the legislator would have added a new reason for the dismissal of the Mayor, although the Constitution-maker, in order to guarantee maximum local autonomy, has expressly and in a limited way defined in the Constitution the reason for the dismissal of the Mayor and has not given authorization for the extension by law of the causes of shkarkimit. Vetë jurisprudenca of this Court has considered in violation of the Constitution, by repealing the legal provisions that have been issued in excess of and without authorization of the constitutional provisions.

12. Often, the Constitution deliberately leaves room for regulation by the ordinary legislator, so as not to hinder the taking of political, economic, social and cultural initiatives by political parties or the government. However, the Constitution, in addition, can provide in detail and expressly for the cases for which it cannot leave room for regulation to the ordinary legislator. The Constitutional Court has emphasized that "in any case, when the constitutional regulation is expressly provided for by it, it will necessarily be applied directly. The content of the constitutional provision cannot be avoided or exceeded by giving priority to the legal acts that arise on the basis of and for the implementation of the Constitution". This obligation derives from the content of Article 4/3 of the Constitution and is a consolidated position of the Constitutional Court on other analogous issues, in which it has emphasized that "what the Constitution did not want to do, the law cannot do. Therefore, it cannot be accepted that she omitted without mentioning such cases." For this reason, if it were claimed that the law has provided for a new reason for dismissal, then the principle of the rule of law, expressed with the priority of the norms of the Constitution in relation to other legal norms, would be affected. (See Decisions No. 16 dated 10.04.2015; No. 3, dated 20.02.2006; No. 212, dated 29.10.2002; No. 29, dated 09.11.2005, No. 9, dated 01.03.202; No. 25, dated 05.12.2008; No. 19, dated 03.05.2007; No. 2, dated 3.2.2010; No. 5, dated 05.02.2014; No. 60, dated 16.09.2016; No. 25, dated 28.04.2014; No. 23, dated 08.06.2011 of the Constitutional Court).

13. The legal order does not consist of equivalent legal norms or with the same legal force, on the contrary, it is a graduated system, where the norms of law are ranked on the basis of the legal force they have. The unity of this system lies in the dependence that exists between the "creative" norm and the "created" norm. This pyramid of normative acts has at its top the Constitution, which serves as a source for other legal acts. The Court in its jurisprudence has stated that the principle of the rule of law obliges all bodies of public power to exercise their powers only within and on the basis of constitutional norms, otherwise the principle of constitutionality that obliges all bodies of public power to exercise their powers only within the framework and on the basis of constitutional norms is violated. (See Decisions No. 16 dated 10.04.2015; No. 3, dated 20.02.2006; No. 212, dated 29.10.2002; No. 29, dated 09.11.2005, No. 9, dated 01.03.202; No. 25, dated 05.12.2008; No. 19, dated 03.05.2007; No. 2, dated 3.2.2010; 6 No. 5, dated 05.02.2014; No. 60, dated 16.09.2016; No. 25, dated 28.04.2014; No. 23, dated 08.06.2011 of the Constitutional Court)

14. Article 115 of the Constitution is a norm of a restrictive character for the competence of the Council of Ministers: the latter can dismiss the mayor only when there is a "serious violation of the Constitution or laws". This is a guarantee that the Constitution gives to the elected local mandate, to protect it from arbitrary interventions of the central government. If it were allowed For the legislator to add other grounds for dismissal, beyond those derived from this article, the protective function of Article 115 would be destroyed, reducing it to an empty provision. If the opposite were to be accepted, then the mayors would be vulnerable to unilateral interventions by the central government, while the Constitution has aimed to guarantee exactly the opposite: that their mandate is violated only in exceptional cases, when it is proven that there has been a serious violation of the constitutional or legal order. This is the only interpretation that preserves the coherence of the hierarchy of norms, legal certainty and the right of citizens to be governed by the representative they have chosen. If Article 62, letter "c" of Law no. 139/2015 would be understood as a new cause of dismissal, independent from the Constitution, then contrary to the constitutional jurisprudence so far, we would have to accept that mayors no longer enjoy constitutional protection in the process of their dismissal. This would lead to a decrease in their status from democratically elected and constitutionally protected bodies, to ordinary administrative functionaries, who can be dismissed on the basis of criteria not authorized by the Constitution and unilaterally established by the legislature. This result would overturn the principle of local autonomy sanctioned in the Constitution and in the European Charter of Local Autonomy.

15. Given that the Constitution itself has defined the reasons for which the mayor may be dismissed, and has not authorized the legislator to add other reasons for dismissal, any case of termination of his mandate remains directly related to Article 115 of the Constitution. This norm is constructed as a special constitutional guarantee, which not only limits the competence of the Council of Ministers, but also raises a barrier against any attempt to relativize the elected local mandate through the interventions of the legislator. Therefore, any attempt to read Article 62 of Law no. 139/2015 as the creation of a new category of dismissal outside the constitutional framework, would in itself be an interpretation that cannot be made, because it is an unconstitutional interpretation, which contradicts the principle of supremacy of the Constitution and the protective function that it recognizes to the elected local mandate.

16. In this logic, the Constitutional Court is always competent to review requests aimed at repealing the decisions of the Council of Ministers on the dismissal of mayors. To accept the opposite would mean that through a legal or sub-legal act, the Constitutional Court could be stripped of the powers that the Constitution itself has given it, which would overturn the hierarchy of sources of law and pave the way for the instrumentalization of the law as a means of 7 circumventing constitutional control. Basically, instruments that use unconstitutional interpretations of legal provisions, claiming the existence of new grounds for dismissal, beyond the constitutional ones, with the aim of achieving a result that the Constitution has not foreseen, cannot be used. Such an approach, in addition to being unacceptable in a state governed by the rule of law, it undermines the very function of the Constitutional Court as the guarantor of the constitutional order and of constitutional principles, such as the separation of powers.

17. Based on Article 115/2 of the Constitution, the dismissed body may appeal within 15 days to the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court has stated that the date of commencement of the deadline for appealing against an individual act, which violates the rights of the person, will be considered the date of the person's knowledge of the existence of the act, regardless of other forms of publication (decision no. 37, dated 25.07.2013 of the Constitutional Court). If the applicant claims that he has not previously been informed about the dismissal decision, therefore, the date of receipt of the dismissal will be calculated as the date of receipt of the dismissal decision on 17.05.2016 in the Official Gazette. (Decision no. 67, dated 11.11.2016 of the Constitutional Court) As will be extensively argued below, the applicant has violated a number of constitutional rights as a result of the decision subject to trial and has raised allegations related to the procedure and criteria for his dismissal from office, as a result, within the 15-day deadline, the submission of this request before the Constitutional Court is also legitimized ratione temporis.

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18. The Constitutional Court has affirmed in the course of its jurisprudence that while exercising constitutional control over the act of dismissal of the local government body, it must, first, assess whether the proceeding body has complied with (i) the constitutional requirements for due process of law and other constitutional principles and, subsequently, assesses (ii) the merits of the act of dismissal (see decision no. 29 dated 27.06.2013 of the Constitutional Court). As a result, we first consider focusing on our allegations regarding flagrant violations of the constitutional requirements for due process of law and constitutional principles, and, subsequently, with the allegations about the groundlessness of the act of dismissal.

III.ALLEGATIONS OF VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS OF LAW AND CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PROCEDURES FOR THE DISMISSAL OF THE MAYOR

III-1 Violation of the right to be heard and defended effectively

17. In its jurisprudence, the Constitutional Court has emphasized that the right of the individual to due process of law, provided for in Article 42 of the Constitution, is not limited only to judicial proceedings, but also includes those of disciplinary administrative character. In this sense, she has emphasized that every body of public power, while exercising its constitutional and legal function, is obliged to respect democratic standards, which have found their reflection in the Constitution. The obligation to respect the principle of in-depth investigation/scrutiny, as well as all detyrimet e lidhura me procesin e rregullt ligjor shtrihen jo vetëm ndaj organeve 9 judicial, but also administrative. The Constitutional Court, in Decision No. 8, dated 02.05.2006, states:

The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Albania, in its decision no. 17, dated 18.07.2005, referring to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, has recognized that the right to a fair trial also includes the notion that both parties to the proceedings have the right to have information about the facts and arguments of the opposing party, which means in principle the possibility for the parties to have knowledge of the comments on the evidence.

The participation of the parties in the trial, the hearing of their claims on the evidence and interpretation of the law in the specific case, is guaranteed by Article 42 of the Constitution and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, because this participation serves to substantially protect the rights of each party. Not only that, but the creation of conditions to make an effective defense is not only in the interest of the parties, but also in the interest of justice.

Any process where acquired rights are questioned cannot be considered to be outside the notion of "due process" as long as these acquired rights are discussed and decided. Therefore, compliance with the constitutional principle of due process cannot be accepted as starting only in the retrial of the case in the district court. On the contrary, this principle is mandatory to be respected at all stages of a process where it is sought to violate the acquired rights and the legal certainty deriving from them.

18. The petitioner has not been officially informed by the Tirana Municipal Council nor by the Council of Ministers regarding the holding by this body of a meeting in which it would be decided regarding his dismissal as Mayor, the reasons for his dismissal, the materials that charge him with responsibility, the relevant clarifications on their part, the request for clarifications and evidence from the petitioner regarding the alleged violation and the materials on which she is supported, and as a result has not been given the opportunity to defend himself, given explanations and heard before this administrative body, neither physically nor in writing. Moreover, when, since he was in detention conditions, based on a personal security measure, his opportunities were even more limited than a free individual and that any other mayor who was dismissed and appealed his decision before the Constitutional Court. Due to this circumstance, there is a need for an even stricter review by the Constitutional Court of the application of due process standards to the applicant due to the situation he was in.

19. This circumstance takes on particular importance, as detention does not strip the individual of his constitutional rights, on the contrary, it requires the public authorities to show extra care and attention in respecting them. In conditions where the applicant was isolated, any obligation of the administration to inform him, to give him the opportunity to express himself and to participate in the process takes on a heavier burden, because only in this way was his right to 10 freedom of expression really guaranteed. protection. The absence of any notice and the inability to be heard put the applicant in a more disadvantageous position than any other mayor who is not in such conditions, creating a double standard and discriminatory treatment in practice.

20. Detention should not be seen as an obstacle to the fundamental rights of participation in the process, but as a circumstance that requires caution and concrete measures on the part of the authorities to make the rights of protection effective, not leaving them alone on papers without content. When an individual is in detention, every notification, every explanation, every opportunity to be heard and to challenge the materials on the basis of which administrative acts are being taken, should be made to a higher standard to avoid detention being used as a de facto tool to restrict constitutional rights.

21. The Applicant's right to be heard and effectively defended has been violated, due to the fact that both the Tirana Municipality Council and the Council of Ministers have not requested information or clarification from the Applicant regarding the alleged violations. He has not been given the opportunity to be heard and present evidence, as well as the necessary acts of the dismissal process that has been conducted by both the Tirana Municipality Council and the Council of Ministers, in order to guarantee an effective defense, have not been made available to him. In the present case, the applicant was notified only through the media about the initiation of the procedure of dismissal from the office of the Mayor and there was no official announcement from either the Municipal Council or the Council of Ministers. The right to be heard, as one of the main principles that characterizes the regularity of a legal process, is closely related to the right to defend oneself effectively, to conduct an adversarial process, to the principle of equality of the parties, in order for each party to have the opportunity to present before the body all the arguments or legal remedies that serve to resolve the case as fairly as possible. The ECtHR in its jurisprudence takes the position that the desire to save time and speed up proceedings does not justify disregarding such a fundamental principle as the right to adversarial proceedings.

22. Even when the petitioner urgently addressed the Municipal Council to request from them the guarantee of the opportunity to participate in the meeting of the Municipal Council, although he was in custody, there was no letter from the Municipal Council inviting/requesting him to participate in the meeting of the Municipal Council and no letter addressed to the Special Prosecutor's Office or the Directorate of Prisons for this. In response to his letter to have the opportunity to participate in the meeting of the Municipal Council, the applicant, one day before the meeting, was confronted with the letter of the Secretary of the Municipal Council, who, without explicitly informing him about his right to participate in the meeting of the Municipal Council, without informing him about the existence of a decision-making by the competent body for this, without informing him regarding the reason for the meeting, the reasons for the proposed dismissal, the materials that charge him with responsibility, the relevant clarifications that could 11 be requested by the Council of The Municipality or the request for clarifications and evidence from the applicant, regarding the alleged violation and the materials on which it relies, in excess of its legal limits, not creating the opportunity to defend itself, given explanations and heard before this administrative body, neither physically nor in writing, the Secretary of the Municipal Council, who did not even have the tags for this, in other words, replied "You are not forbidden to come to the meeting, but you can".

23. The failure to guarantee the above rights and the inability to prepare the elements of the defense themselves (explanations, counter-arguments, research and making available of evidence) takes on an even more serious color when the subject is in a situation of isolation aggravated by detention and no documentation was made available to him. Therefore, the authorities organizing the discharge process have a duty to provide effective means of communication and guarantee effective protection.

24. Detention as a security measure is temporary in nature and cannot serve as an indirect reason for the termination of the politically elected mandate, moreover when the minimum, strict compliance with all the guarantees of due process has not been ensured beforehand. Otherwise, precautionary criminal measures would be transformed into instruments to terminate the elected mandate, before the court had determined criminal responsibility, violating the principle of the presumption of innocence. For these reasons, the applicant's situation imposes an even stricter review by the Constitutional Court, not only to analyze whether the formal procedure has been respected, but also to verify whether, under the conditions of detention, the authorities have taken positive measures to make effective his rights to defend himself, to give explanations and to be heard.

III-2 Violation of the right to due to the urgency through which the procedure was conducted

25. The dismissal process was done urgently and the procedural rules of Law no. 9000/2003 and the Regulation. The decision of the Tirana Municipality Council to approve the proposal for his dismissal from the office of Mayor was taken on 23.09.2025, while the decision of the Council of Ministers to dismiss him was taken on 25.09.2025, although there was no urgency for this. Speed has also characterized the procedure before the Municipal Council. This is disproportionate in the conditions when the Mayor was in detention conditions and in the Municipality of Tirana there were also appointed deputy mayors.

26. In the present case, the applicant's lack of opportunity to be heard is not merely a formal breach of procedure, but a substantial violation of the right to a fair trial. regular, because it is 12 denied any real opportunity to present his version of events and to contest the reasons that led to the dismissal proposal. The Tirana Municipal Council and the Council of Ministers have acted unilaterally, not asking for information and not giving them the necessary time to react on the allegations. A process that is carried out without the participation of the entity in whose charge the procedures are conducted, cannot be called fair or balanced. The manner in which the procedure is conducted seriously violates the right to due process and the constitutional principle of the rule of law itself.

27. The decision of the Tirana Municipality Council to propose the dismissal was taken on 23.09.2025, and only two days later, on 25.09.2025, the Council of Ministers decided the dismissal, without giving the applicant any opportunity to intervene. Given that the dismissal procedure was conducted in an urgent manner, the applicant does not appear to have been acquainted in advance with the violations attributed to him, so that, in a procedural confrontation, he could present his objections to these violations. Thus, he has not been given the opportunity to exercise the right to be heard and to present explanations, in the framework of the due legal process. Neither the Tirana Municipality Council and the Council of Ministers had any communication with the applicant, even with technological means, that could guarantee the speed of notification.

28. This accelerated pace does not reflect the need to protect the public interest from any immediate danger, but it is a procedural rush that contradicts the principle of due diligence in making decisions that interfere with the mandates elected by the citizens. In the absence of an urgent or emergency situation, the authorities were obliged to respect all procedural safeguards, including the applicant's right to be informed, to provide explanations and to present his evidence. The fact that the applicant was in custody made it even more mandatory to comply with these standards. He had appointed deputy mayors, who ensured the continuity of the municipality's functions, therefore, there was no objective reason to justify the rush to dismiss the mayor in such a short period of time, without giving him the opportunity to be heard. Unlike the situations where it could be argued that the urgency of the public service requires immediate decision-making, here the local body continued to function and there was no danger to the citizens or to the institution. Moreover, when the existence of a constitutional cause to allow dismissal was also missing.

29. This lack of urgency is essential for the assessment of the constitutionality of the procedure, because it highlights that the violation of the applicant's rights was avoidable. The decision-making body has chosen to proceed with unjustified speed, sacrificing constitutional guarantees in the name of a hasty decision. This makes it even clearer that we are not dealing with a due process, but with procedures which, in terms of the way they have been developed, have resulted in the bypassing of the protection of the applicant and the weakening of the functioning 13 of Article 115 of the Constitution, serving as a shield against unjustified interventions by the central government.

30. Under these conditions, it is imperative that the Constitutional Court strictly regards the absence of urgency as an additional element indicating the arbitrariness of the procedure. If such an approach were accepted, then any dismissal of mayors could be carried out with fast-track procedures, avoiding the guarantees of due process and making the protection that the Constitution offers illusory. This would bring a dangerous consequence not only for the specific functionary, but for the entire system of local autonomy, turning the elected local mandate into an uncertain mandate dependent on the will of the central government, and not on constitutional and legal guarantees.

III-3 Violation of the right to a thorough and effective review

31. Given that the guarantees of the right to due process extend as obligations to be respected also by the administrative bodies, a thorough and effective examination should have been carried out by the Council of the Municipality of Tirana and the Council of Ministers regarding the reason for the dismissal of the applicant; how this legal provision should be implemented; if the constitutional elements of dismissal were met by the applicant due to the absence of 3 months; or the applicant was faced with an objective inability to exercise his duty, which did not depend on his will, etc. Given that the dismissal of the elected local government body is an extreme measure of control procedures, it should be taken after a careful assessment of some elements developed in the jurisprudence of this Court, according to which the correct and correct understanding of the concept of serious violation of the law is evaluated in its entirety by several factors, which relate to (1) the significance of the law violated; (2) the consequences arising from its violation; (3) the duration of these consequences as well as (4) the subjective attitude of the specific person towards the committed violation (see Decisions No. 15, dated 03.05.2011; No. 15, dated 08.06.2009; No. 22, dated 07.10.2008 of the Constitutional Court).

32. Nor has this type of assessment been carried out by the two bodies involved in these procedures. In accordance with the standards elaborated by the Constitutional Court regarding the effective guarantee of the right to have an effective review before making a decision, the bodies involved in the procedure of dismissal of the Mayor, in the exercise of their functions, have been obliged to investigate all the circumstances in a full manner, in its entirety and objectively. In a democratic society, the right of the individual to be heard is a necessary guarantee to respect the rights and other fundamental freedoms of citizens in a state of law. 1 1 Decisions of the Constitutional Court no. 4/2005; No. 21/2006; No. 10/2007; No.26/2007 14 33. The European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter ECtHR) regarding the right to an effective review/investigation of the case has stated that the parties to the proceedings have the right to submit the observations they deem relevant to the case. This right is effective only if the requests and remarks of the parties are really "heard", d.m.th. are properly reviewed by the court. Thus, the bodies must make a genuine examination of the means, arguments, and evidence provided by the parties.

III-4 Violation of the principle of equality of the parties and co-traditionality

34. The right to be heard, as one of the main principles that characterizes the regularity of a legal process, is closely related to the right to defend oneself effectively, to conduct an adversarial process, to the principle of equality of the parties, in order for each party to have the opportunity to present before the body all the arguments or legal remedies that serve to resolve the case as fairly as possible. The ECtHR in its jurisprudence takes the position that the desire to save time and speed up proceedings does not justify disregarding such a fundamental principle as the right to adversarial proceedings. 3 The right to an adversarial procedure in principle means the opportunity for the parties in a criminal or civil trial to have knowledge and comments on all evidence obtained or observations made.

35. The ECtHR in its jurisprudence states that the active participation of a person in a legal procedure, as well as his effective hearing, serves to guarantee the principles of due process. In the case of T. v. the United Kingdom, the ECtHR observed that Article 6 of the ECHR, read in its entirety, guarantees the right of the person to participate effectively in the process. Consequently, the Court has assessed that in such a situation the person has been denied a fair trial in violation of Article 6/1. In case H v. Belgium, the Court interpreted that the right to a "public hearing" in Article 6/1 of the ECHR necessarily implies the right to an "oral hearing". The ECtHR has considered in violation of the principle of equality of arms cases where one of the parties enjoyed significant advantages in terms of access to relevant information, or held a dominant position in the procedure and possessed considerable influence in relation to the court's assessment. As evidenced in this request, the HIDAACI clearly had a dominant position because its findings have been taken as given, without being subjected to an effective review. Furthermore, the equality of arms and the effective protection of the applicant are violated when, in open breach of the legal framework in Kraska c. Suisse, § 30 ; Van de Hurk v. Pays-Bas, § 59 ; Perez v. France, § 80 3 Nideröst-Huber v. Switzerland, § 30 4 Ruiz-Mateos v. Spain, 63 §; McMichael v. United Kingdom, 80 §; Vermeulen v. Belgium, 33 §; Lobo Machado v. Portugal, 31 §; Kress v. France, § 74. 15 power, nor was the expert report submitted by the applicant to the Administrative Court of Appeals taken into consideration and reviewed by this court.

36. In this case, we are dealing with a profound violation of the principle of equality of the parties, which is a fundamental element of the right to due process and which extends as an obligation also to administrative bodies when exercising functions with direct consequences on fundamental rights and elected mandates. Equality of the parties is not just a formal concept, but implies the creation of a real balance in the process, where each party has an effective opportunity to present its arguments and evidence, get acquainted with those of the other party and influence decision-making. In the procedure carried out, this balance has been flagrantly violated. Before the Tirana Municipal Council, only the opinion of the councilors proposing the dismissal was heard, without giving the mayor the opportunity to be informed about the procedure in charge of him, to be informed and get acquainted with the acts, to appear, to clarify the circumstances and to give his explanations and evidence. The same thing happened before the Council of Ministers: only the proposal received from the Municipal Council was taken into account, while the subject of dismissal was not invited, was not informed about the materials on which the dismissal would be decided and was not heard either directly or through his representatives. Thus, decision-making is built on a one-sided information, where only one party's arguments have become part of the process, while the other party has been completely excluded.

37. Such a procedure can be called neither fair nor objective, because it creates a visible inequality: the proposer participated, influenced the decision and supported his position, while the subject of the dismissal was deprived of any opportunity to give his version, to adduce contradictory evidence and to cast doubt on the accuracy of the allegations. This turns the procedure into a formal act of unilateral approval of the proposal, without any real guarantee of an impartial and thorough review. The violation is even more serious if we take into account that it is not a matter of an ordinary administrative procedure, but of the termination of the mandate of a body directly elected by the citizens. Under these conditions, the weight of procedural guarantees should be even greater, because the decision affects not only the individual as a person, but also the electoral will of an entire community. The exclusion of the mayor from the right to be heard creates a situation where not only he, but also the citizens who elected him, had no voice in the dismissal procedure.

38. Equality of the parties implies not only that both parties have the right to express themselves, but also that they have real and equal opportunities to exercise this right. Equality of arms means that each party must be given a reasonable opportunity to present its case, including its evidence, under conditions that do not place it at a substantial disadvantage to the party tjetër. Moreover, the ECHR states that the Convention does not guarantee theoretical or illusory rights, but rather those that are… 5 Dombo Beheer B.V. v. Netherlands, § 33 16 concrete and effective rights. It is essential that the parties can participate appropriately in the process. Also, the Constitutional Court, in Decision No. 23, dated 08.06.2007, states:

39. The Constitutional Court emphasizes that equality of arms is an important aspect of the concept of due process of law in the constitutional sense. This principle implies that each party to the proceedings is given a reasonable opportunity to present its case (including the presentation of evidence on its part), under conditions that do not put it at a significant disadvantage in relation to the other party.

40. In the present case, the subject of dismissal was in custody, i.e. in a limited position to exercise his own defence. Instead of the authorities taking positive measures to balance this restriction, they chose to exclude him from the process altogether. This deepens the inequality even more, because it puts him in a situation where not only was there no equal treatment with the proposer, but there was even no real opportunity to present a defense. The way the procedure has been conducted has led to an open violation of the principle of equality of the parties and, therefore, of the due process itself. The dismissal decision was not taken in a process where the arguments of both parties were equally confronted, but in a one-sided procedure where only the proposing party was heard, while the subject of dismissal was left silent. Such a process cannot produce valid constitutional consequences, because it is built on inequality, exclusion and denial of elementary guarantees that give meaning and legitimacy to any decision-making in a state of law.

41. This way of conducting the procedure has violated not only the equality of the parties, but also the principle of adversariality of the trial, which requires that any decision making be based on a process where the parties face each other's arguments and evidence and have a real opportunity to challenge them. In the present case, the procedure was closed and one sided, because only the proposer of the dismissal was heard, while the subject of the dismissal was left out of any opportunity to confront the arguments of his opponents, to question their evidence and to bring evidence and explanations in defense of himself. Without contradiction, the procedure loses its function as a means to reach a fair decision and turns into a formality that simply legitimizes a one-sided position in advance.

42. The Municipal Council and the Council of Ministers, by not giving the applicant the opportunity to face the arguments presented against him, have upset the necessary balance of the process and have denied one of the most basic guarantees of due process of law. In the absence of adversariality, the decision taken does not reflect an impartial and full and profound of the case, but simply the will of one party, depriving the procedure of any kind of constitutional legitimacy.

III-5 Violation of the principle of the presumption of innocence

43. The Constitution provides that everyone is presumed innocent as long as he has not been proven guilty by a final court decision (Article 30 of the Constitution). The Court has previously stated that the presumption of innocence is one of the constituent elements of due process of law. According to Article 30 of the Constitution, everyone is called innocent, as long as he has not been proven guilty by a final court decision. (See Constitutional Court decisions no. 9, dated 28.04.2004; no. 23, dated 23.07.2009). The presumption of innocence has also been extensively addressed by the ECtHR, which has pointed out that this principle is considered violated if a verdict pertaining to a criminally charged individual reflects an opinion that he is guilty before his guilt has been proven under the law. (judgments in John Murray v. United Kingdom, 8 February 1996; Telfner v. Austria, June 20, 2001).

44. First, the presumption of innocence is not limited to criminal courts, but obliges any public authority not to treat a person as guilty before a final guilty verdict. When the Municipal Council and the Council of Ministers use the state of detention as a factual basis or as a procedural catalyst to produce an extreme consequence, such as the dismissal from office of a local elected official, without first ensuring full respect for the guarantees of the process and without conducting an independent, in-depth and individualized assessment of the circumstances, They practically treat the insurance measure as an indicator of responsibility. This turns a temporary and non-penalizing measure into a sanctioning basis of fact, instrumentalizing the criminal proceeding for an administrative decision-making with serious political and public consequences. This logic contradicts Article 30 of the Constitution: detention is neither proof of guilt, nor a "seal" of a serious violation; He cannot ipso facto produce termination of mandate.

45. Second, the way in which the dismissal procedure was constructed effectively reversed the burden of proof: instead of the bodies demonstrating that the 3-month absence was voluntary and unjustified, they treated the objective impossibility (detention) themselves as a culpable absence and, then, as a "serious violation" within the meaning of Article 115. This is an authoritarianization of the standard: from "serious violation of the law" (requiring guilt, intention, consequence and proportionality assessment) it was moved to "absence of more than three months due to the criminal procedural situation" = "reason for dismissal". If an administrative authority presumes the existence of guilt from a personal security measure, it directly contradicts the principle that prohibits any authority from prejudging the person's guilt before a final criminal decision.

46. Thirdly, the violation of the presumption of innocence also emerges from the one-sided procedural architecture that has been followed by the interested parties: the applicant was not 18 officially notified, was not made aware of acts and materials, could not be heard either in person or in writing, and was not enabled alternative mechanisms of effective participation. This makes it even more evident that the decision-making was not made on the basis of adversariality and without guaranteeing the equality of the parties, but on a one-sided narrative of the "violation", i.e., on a premature prejudice that presupposes guilty behavior. The material result of this procedural choice is that the bodies attribute to the applicant an absence of guilt (subjective element) that he had no opportunity to explain or refute. This is also a form of violation of the presumption of innocence: the authority draws negative conclusions from the imposed inability to defend itself.

47. Fourth, the principle of the presumption of innocence requires that all official discourse and every public act maintain neutrality to guilt until this is decided by the criminal court. When a dismissal decision is based on a 3-month absence stemming from detention and does not clearly distinguish between culpable absence and no-fault absence (objective impossibility), the language and logic of the decision produce institutional stigmatization: "he has not exercised his duty ⇒ serious violation ⇒ dismissal". This chain presents the applicant as the cause of a serious violation, while the real cause is a precautionary measure, not an act of guilt nor a voluntary absence, presuming the element of guilt without a final judicial finding, violating the essence of Article 30.

48. Fifth, the presumption of innocence is closely related to proportionality and ultima ratio. Before the mandate was violated, the bodies had to prove that they were facing a constitutional cause of dismissal and there were no less restrictive measures that protected the public interest and the continuity of services (p.sh. exercise of powers by the vice-presidents until the resolution of the objective obstacle). By not making this assessment and going directly to the maximum sanction, the interested parties behaved as if the objective impossibility brought about by the detention was sufficient evidence of a "serious violation" attributable to the applicant. This sanctions the person on the basis of a procedural situation, not on the basis of a proven conduct, i.e., again a violation of the presumption of innocence.

49. Sixth, the very structure of Article 62, letter "c" requires will and guilt: the three-month absence as a cause of dismissal is such only when it is unjustified and chosen by the holder of the mandate. When the absence stems from an objective impossibility imposed by the state (detention), then it cannot be categorized as a "serious violation of the law" without violating the presumption of innocence: otherwise, we would be facing a "masked" criminal sanction, dictated by a precautionary measure, not by a guilt proven by a final court decision. The qualification of this situation as a reason for dismissal, presumes guilt in the absence of the element of will required by the law issued in implementation of the Constitution, contrary to the principle of presumption of innocence.

50. In conclusion, the way in which the dismissal procedure was initiated, developed and closed, relying on the impossibility of appearing in office due to the state of detention, without effective hearing, without assessment of the subjective element of absence and without proportionality, produces a substantial violation of Article 30 of the Constitution. The dismissal was based on a presumption of guilt and on factual conclusions that treat the absence, as a result of a security measure, as evidence of blameworthy conduct. This renders the act incompatible with the Constitution and necessitates its annulment.

III-6 Violation of the principle of local autonomy and the rule of law

51. The dismissal of the mayor is not just an administrative measure against a "functionary", but a direct interference in the politically elected mandate and in local autonomy, which is protected by the Constitution and by Article 3 of the European Charter of Local Autonomy.

52. The Constitutional Court has affirmed that the dismissal from office or dissolution of local government bodies is a measure of interference exercised on these bodies by the central government, therefore the procedure and criteria set out in Article 115 of the Constitution must be applied in function of local autonomy. (Decision no. 25 dated 10.05.2021 of the Constitutional Court)

53. The Constitution of Albania stipulates that local government is based on the principle of decentralization of power and is exercised according to the principle of local autonomy. The European Charter of Local Self-Government, ratified by the relevant law and considered part of domestic legislation, contains the basic concepts related to local autonomy and the principle of subsidiarity. On the other hand, the Constitutional Court has emphasized that local government means the right of people in a given territorial community to independently govern their affairs through bodies that they elect themselves or directly. The principle of decentralization of power is an essential principle on which local government is built and functions. It is exercised through the constitutional principle of local autonomy and conditions the existence of a local selfgoverning government, according to the advanced concepts of the organization of the democratic state. The way local government is organized and functioning, as well as the relationship it has with the central government, depend on the constitutional and legal meaning given to the decentralization of power, local autonomy and self-government.

54. Decentralization is a process, where authority and responsibility for certain functions is transferred from the central government to the local government units. At the Heart of 6 See Decision No. 29, dated 21.12.2006 of the Constitutional Court. 20 Decentralization is the principle of subsidiarity, according to which "the exercise of public responsibilities should, in general, belong more to the closest authorities of the citizens". Autonomy, on the other hand, is such a legal regime, in which the bodies of local units act independently for the resolution of those issues that the Constitution and laws have left to them in their competence. The autonomy of local government expresses its most obvious aspect in the division of competences, which has to do with the initiative that local government bodies have or should have, based on the Constitution and the law, to decide on their own for the problems that fall within their jurisdiction.

55. Local autonomy is essentially violated when the central government terminates an elected mandate without relying on a cause provided by the Constitution and the law issued in its implementation. Article 115 of the Constitution allows dismissal only for "serious violations of the Constitution or laws", while Article 62 of the Law on Local Self-Government, interpreted in accordance with Article 115 of the Constitution on the basis of which it was issued, concretizes this standard, including in the case of a 3-month absence, without objective reasons. In our case, the absence stems from an objective impossibility (detention), i.e. it does not fall under the hypothesis of Article 62, letter "c". By treating this objective deficiency as a "cause of dismissal", the Council of Ministers has applied a new criterion, which is not found in any legal provision. This deviation transforms the guarantee of Article 115 of the Constitution from an extraordinary filter of legality into a means of political discretion, violating the principle of local autonomy.

56. Local autonomy presupposes that central intervention is limited and predictable: the local body can only be dismissed when there is a serious violation, not when the government creates new grounds for dismissal (p.sh. "objective absence, not dependent on the will of the elected person, due to detention" = "serious violation"). Since the legislator, in accordance with the Constitution, has provided for a three-month absence as a reason for dismissal only when it is unjustified, the government cannot expand its competence by interpretation, including absences with objective causes. This is ultra vires against Article 115: instead of constitutionality, we have a replacement of the will of the constitution-maker, with an executive act that is normatively unjustified.

57. This course of action violates the principle of constitutionality and legal certainty: a mayor and his voters must know in advance when their mandate may be terminated. If absenteeism due to detention, a condition not chosen by the subject, is assimilated to 3-month voluntary absence, then the boundary between what the legal framework sanctions and what the government "declares" after the act disappears. This generates legal uncertainty and makes local autonomy dependent on unwritten standards, contrary to the hierarchy of norms. In the constitutional jurisprudence, it has been emphasized that the principle of the rule of law obliges all bodies public power to exercise their powers only within and on the basis of norms constitutional. The Constitutional Court has emphasized that all bodies, provided for or not in 21 the Constitution, must be subject to the principle of constitutionality and legality, as only in this way is the rule of law guaranteed. The Constitutional Court has emphasized in its jurisprudence that:

The principle of legal certainty guarantees the predictability of the normative system. The issuance of legal norms does not only serve to resolve a potential conflict or regulate a previously unregulated situation. This process should create the impression among the subjects of law that the content of the legal norms guarantees security and stability for the future. Legal certainty is also treated as a condition for the material validity of an act. The constitutional principle of the rule of law will be considered violated, if legal certainty, legal stability and protection of legitimate expectations are denied or violated. State bodies may not unreasonably worsen the legal situation of persons, deny acquired rights or disregard their legitimate interests.”

58. In The extended interpretation of Article 62, letter "c" to include the absence with objective reasons bypasses the constitutional interpretation of the norm, relativizing the elected mandate and its constitutional guarantees. In the representative plan, the use of an unforeseen criterion replaces the local electoral will with the central administrative will, without a legal basis. The local mandate is a political contract with the community; it can be terminated before the deadline only under the strict conditions that the Constitution has established. When the government terminates the mandate without entering within those conditions, considering an objective impossibility as a "serious violation", it takes out of play the constitutional mechanism of protection of local representation. Acceptance of this new standard would create a side way to avoid the constitutional filter of Article 115: a "factual absence of three months" (whatever the reason) is enough, without the need to constitute a serious violation, and the dismissal of the local elected representative can be activated. This not only makes the guarantee of Article 115 illusory, but also fundamentally violates the guarantees of decentralization, from the local level to the central executive.

59. Local autonomy not only guarantees the functional independence of local bodies, but also normative security over borders when this mandate can be terminated. This means that local bodies must be protected from unpredictable and unjustified interventions by the central government. When the Council of Ministers creates a new criterion for dismissal, absence due to detention, which does not appear in either Article 115 of the Constitution or Article 62 of the Law on Local Self-Government, based on and for the implementation of Article 115 of the Constitution, it places local bodies under a constant uncertainty: Any factual circumstance, even when it is not related to fault or serious violation by the elected person himself, can be used as a reason for the termination of the mandate. 7 Decision no. 36, dated 15.10.2007 of the Constitutional Court 22

60. This runs counter to the fundamental idea of local autonomy, because it strips it of the legal guarantee that elected mandates are terminated only on the basis of causes typified in the highest norms of the legal system. If such a "creative" standard is accepted by the central government, local autonomy turns into a fragile status, dependent on momentary political interpretations, rather than a guaranteed constitutional right, which serves as a protector of local autonomy and separation of powers. The Constitutional Court in its jurisprudence has emphasized that "the constitutional principle of the rule of law will be considered violated, if legal certainty, legal stability and protection of legitimate expectations are denied or violated. The legislator may not unreasonably worsen the legal situation of persons, deny acquired rights or disregard their legitimate interests." The ECtHR has also focused on the principle of legal certainty, which according to it "is embodied in all articles of the ECHR and constitutes one of the fundamental aspects of the rule of law."

61. In conclusion, local autonomy has been violated because (i) the central intervention was not based on a constitutional cause; (ii) a new dismissal criterion ("absence due to objective impossibility") was de facto created, not provided for in the Constitution; and (iii) without legal basis, the will of the voters was replaced by executive discretion. In this sense, the act was issued by the Council of Ministers in excess of the powers recognized by the Constitution, eroding the very principle of local autonomy.

III-7 Violation of the principle of hierarchy of norms

62. In a state governed by the rule of law, the legal order is not a set of equivalent norms, but a pyramid built on the hierarchy of sources of law. At the top of this pyramid stands the Constitution, as the fundamental and supreme act, from which all other normative acts originate and which defines the limits of the competence of each body. Ordinary laws do not exist as independent sources, but only as instruments that emerge "on the basis and for the implementation" of the Constitution. Also, the bylaws and individual acts of the administration are even lower at this level, taking effect only if they find direct support in the Constitution or in the law. This order, built on the principle of constitutional supremacy, is the foundation on which legal certainty, predictability and protection of fundamental rights are guaranteed.

63. Respect for the hierarchy of normative acts is an obligation deriving from the principle of the rule of law and coherence in the legal system. Consequently, in cases of conflicts between norms with different legal forces, the norm with higher force has precedence over the other norm (lex superior derogat inferiori). The principles, that the specific norm takes precedence over the general norm (lex specialis derogat generali) and that the norm that came into force later takes precedence over the previous norm, do not apply in such cases. The decision of the Council of Ministers to dismiss the Mayor of Tirana has overturned this established order. At the head of it, he mentioned only Article 100 of the Constitution and Article 62 of the Law on local selfgovernment, bypassing Article 115 of the Constitution, which is the only constitutional source that authorizes the early termination of the mandate of an elected local body. This action does not 23 local self-government, bypassing Article 115 of the Constitution, which is the only constitutional source that authorizes the early termination of the mandate of an elected local body. This action is not a formal mistake, but a substantial evasion: it transforms an ordinary legal provision into an independent source of competences, without going through the constitutional filter. In this way, ordinary law has been treated as a norm above the Constitution, bypassing the superior norm and using the legal provision as an excuse to expand powers that the Constitution has not granted.

64. In reality, Law no. 139/2015, provides that it has been issued on the basis of and for the implementation of Article 115 of the Constitution. So, the law has no independent existence and cannot be understood outside the constitutional framework that generated it. By using this article as if it were an autonomous basis to legitimize the dismissal, according to this decision of the Council of Ministers, instead of the Constitution authorizing the law, it is the law that has replaced the Constitution. This inverse is the clearest violation of the hierarchy of sources of law, because it implies that a low-ranking rate is defining and replacing the field of the higher rate.

65. If this approach were accepted, a dangerous precedent would be created: any legal provision that came after, instead of being implemented in accordance with the Constitution, could be used as a basis to circumvent or relativize constitutional provisions. This would eliminate the function of the Constitution as a supreme act, transforming it into a declarative document with no real restrictive powers over powers. Such a situation would destroy not only the principle of the rule of law, but also the guarantees of local self-government, because the elected mandate would no longer be protected by the Constitution, but dependent on the case-by-case interpretations of an ordinary law or an act of the executive. In the constitutional jurisprudence, it has been emphasized that the principle of the rule of law obliges all bodies of public power to exercise their powers only within the framework and on the basis of constitutional norms. Bearing in mind that the state has the duty to respect and protect the foundations (fundamental values) expressly defined in the Constitution, the Constitutional Court has underlined that state bodies in the acts they adopt and in the actions they perform, on the one hand, must be inspired by these fundamental values (Article 3), but, on the other hand, they must at the same time respect the rule of law, i.e. that their activity is based on law in the broad sense (latu sensu), which includes not only the Constitution, but also the respective legal framework (Article 4).

66. For the above, a constitutional interpretation according to which the law can expand or relativize constitutional provisions, would in fact imply a reversal of the normative order and the rule of law: the common law would rise above the Constitution and take on the role of the determiner of its limits, diluting the restrictive character of the constitutional norm towards power. Such a precedent would allow the legislature or executive, through interpretation diskrecional or through new norms, to undo the balance of the separation of powers, placing the local government in a completely dependent and legally uncertain position. If it is allowed to be interpreted that constitutional powers, such as that of terminating the mandate of a local elected representative, If 24 they are added or modified by the legislator without clear constitutional authorization, then the meaning of the Constitution itself as the "law of laws" loses its protective function. In essence, it would legitimize a practice where the next political will gives itself the right to interfere in local representation, turning the Constitution into a formal and surpassable document, instead of being a truly restrictive and protective legal act for institutional rights and balances.

67. This violation of the hierarchy is also clearly manifested in the logic used: The Council of Ministers has bypassed the standard of Article 115, which requires a "serious violation" of the Constitution or of the law, and has used an objective omission, which does not contain the element of guilt and is not provided for by the Constitution, as a reason for dismissal. With this expansion, a new cause has been created, not foreseen by the Constitution, placing the law above the Constitution and the executive over constitutional legitimacy. This is the essence of the violation of the hierarchy of sources of law: the relationship of dependence between the low rate and the higher rate has been broken, turning the low rate into an instrument to change and distort the supreme rate.

68. Therefore, by issuing the act subject to adjudication, we are not dealing with a simply erroneous interpretation of the law, but with a systemic and even deliberate violation of the constitutional architecture of the sources of law, causing the decision of the Council of Ministers to be unconstitutional because it overturns the principle of constitutional supremacy, violating the legal order in its entirety.

IV.GROUNDLESSNESS OF THE ACT OF DISMISSAL

69. Basically, the dismissal of the applicant is not supported either in the Constitution or in the special law "On Local Self-Government". The very text of Article 115 of the Constitution is clear: the termination of the mayor's mandate is only possible for "serious violations of the Constitution or laws". This standard is not just a rhetorical formulation, but a constitutional guarantee that limits the interventions of the central government in the mandate of bodies elected by the citizens. The legislator, by issuing on the basis and for the implementation of Article 115 of the Constitution, the law no. 139/2015, has not created new independent grounds for dismissal, but has only aimed to specify some of the typical cases of what is considered a "serious violation". Among them, letter "c" of Article 62 mentions the 3-month absence of the incumbent mayor, but, interpreted in accordance with Article 115 of the Constitution, the absence can be a cause for dismissal only if it is not caused by objective circumstances, i.e. only if it constitutes a "serious violation". The very logic of the provision, interpreted in accordance with Article 115 of the Constitution, presupposes that we are dealing with a voluntary, unjustified absence, which turns into a serious violation.

70. The Council of Ministers, at the head of the dismissal decision, cited as legal basis only Article 100 of the Constitution and Article 62 of the Law on Local Self-Government, as if these provisions were sufficient to justify its competence. With this approach, he will claim before this Court that the act was not issued on the basis of Article 115 of the Constitution. But such a claim is completely unfounded. The Constitution, as the highest act of the legal order, has expressly defined in which cases the Mayor can be dismissed. In the absence of a constitutional authorization, the legislator cannot add other cases of dismissal that are not included in this provision and that the Constitution has not authorized the legislator to make. Moreover, even if we refer to Article 62 of the Law on Local SelfGovernment, the latter itself provides that it was issued "on the basis of and for the implementation of Article 115 of the Constitution", i.e. it cannot be understood nor applied in isolation from Article 115, which is the only constitutional source of competence for the dismissal of an elected local body.

71. Article 100 of the Constitution contains a general provision for the functioning of the Council of Ministers, defining its role as the governing body of the state administration, but does not give it material competence to intervene over the mandates of local elected bodies. The power to dismiss a mayor is an extraordinary and limited competence, stemming directly only from Article 115 of the Constitution. This provision is of a special and limiting nature: it not only recognizes the right of the Council of Ministers to undertake such a measure, but at the same time restricts this right by closely linking it to the existence of a serious violation of the Constitution or the law. In other words, Article 115 is not a simple procedural article, but a constitutional filter that gives meaning and legitimacy to any dismissal of an elected local body.

72. In this sense, Article 62 of the Law on Local Self-Government cannot be understood, let alone used as an independent basis, as if it created the power to dismiss itself. Any interpretation of it must necessarily go through Article 115, because it is this article that gives meaning, limits and constitutionality to the legal provision. To use only Article 62 as a basis for dismissal, without linking it directly to the criterion of "serious violation" of the Constitution, is a formal evasion of the constitutional guarantee, treating ordinary law as an independent source of competence for something that the Constitution has explicitly provided for and bound to clear conditions. It is impossible to justify an act of dismissal entirely on the basis of Article 62, because this article cannot stand above the Constitution, but must be read in accordance with it.

73. The absence of the Mayor, due to an objective impossibility caused by detention, does not meet the constitutional criterion of "serious violation". Article 62, interpreted together with Article 115 of the Constitution, provides for absence as a cause of dismissal only when it is unjustified, i.e. when it stems from the will of the person, because only in this 26 case the absence can be constitutes a "serious violation", not when the absence is for objective reasons, independent of the will of the official. In the case of the Mayor of Tirana, the absence was the result of a security measure, i.e. an objective impossibility, and moreover, the continuity of the function was ensured through the implementation of Article 64 of the same law, through the appointment by the Mayor of the deputy mayor who would exercise the powers of the mayor. So, there was basically no "serious violation", which makes the act not only unfounded in the constitution, but also materially unsupported in the concrete circumstances.

74. In this light, the mention of Article 100 and Article 62, leaving out Article 115, is not merely a formal oblivion: it is an attempt to justify a competence that does not exist, by passing through a general norm and a norm of implementation, without going through the only constitutional gate that authorizes such an extreme measure. This is a direct violation of the hierarchy of sources of law and a clear proof that the decision was issued in excess of the competence granted by the Constitution. In the present case, the applicant was not faced with such absence voluntarily chosen by him, but with an objective situation imposed by a personal security measure, imposed by the court. Detention, as a temporary measure of criminal procedure, is not proof of guilt, it is not a sanction and it is not an indication of a careless or illegal attitude of the public official. On the contrary, it is an external situation, independent of his will, which prevented him from exercising his functions personally, but which did not make the task empty: in accordance with Article 64, letter "e" of Law no. 139/2015, he had appointed the deputy mayor to exercise his powers, thus guaranteeing the continuity of the public service and not leaving the institution in a vacuum. So, even in this practical aspect, the serious consequence for the citizens and the institution that the law wanted to prevent when it sanctioned the three-month absence was not created..

75. By treating this objective impossibility as if it were a voluntary absence, the Council of Ministers has extended the scope of Article 62 beyond what the Constitution allows. This shifts the risk from the "serious violation of the official" to the "objective, no-fault state of the official". If this approach were accepted, then any temporary objective obstacle, serious illness, accident, or a security measure that has not yet been converted into a punishment, would be enough to terminate the mandate. This is an absurd result and incompatible with the constitutional nature of the elected mandate. Moreover, in order to qualify a conduct as a "serious violation", the Constitutional Court has emphasized in its jurisprudence that several elements must be taken into consideration: the norm violated, the significance of the norm violated, the consequences incurred as a result of the violation of the functionary, their duration and the subjective attitude of the official towards the violation. In the present case, none of these elements has been evaluated by the administrative bodies. There was no full assessment of the consequences for the community, because the functions of the municipality continued to be exercised by the deputy mayor. There 27 was no analysis of the subjective attitude, because the absence was not chosen or voluntarily. And there was no correlation between the circumstance of detention and any behavior that could qualify as a serious violation of the law.

76. Indeed, what happened is the opposite: an external, temporary circumstance independent of the applicant's will was used as a basis for dismissing him, attributing to him a responsibility that the Constitution and the law do not impose on him. This not only goes beyond the text of the Constitution and the law, but also subverts their purpose: to protect the elected mandate from arbitrary interference, not to create side ways to interrupt it. Under these conditions, there can be no constitutional reason to justify the dismissal. The applicant's absence in office did not stem from his will, but from an objective impossibility caused by a security measure, while he had exercised the legal right to delegate functions to the vice-president. Therefore, the legal basis for the dismissal is unsupported: neither Article 115 of the Constitution, nor Article 62 of Law no. 139/2015 cannot be interpreted as allowing a dismissal on this ground.

77. In the case of criminal charges, a "serious violation", which constitutes a reason for the dismissal of a local elected official, under Article 62 of the Law on Local Self-Government, interpreted in accordance with Article 115 of the Constitution, is considered as such only when there is a final criminal conviction for committing a criminal offense. This standard is not accidentally established by the lawmaker nor by the Constitution, but stems from the very basic principles of the rule of law, among which the principle of presumption of innocence is fundamental. Until there is a final court decision finding a person guilty of committing a criminal offense, that person should be treated as innocent. Consequently, personal security measures, including detention, cannot be equated with a conviction and cannot be considered as proof of guilt. They are temporary measures, of procedural and preventive character, aimed at ensuring the normal development of the criminal process, not drawing a conclusion on criminal liability.

78. If it were to be accepted that the imposition of a personal security measure, such as detention for a period of three months or more, was to be interpreted as a sufficient cause to qualify as a 'serious violation' within the meaning of Article 115 of the Constitution and Article 62 of the Law on Local Self-Government, this would mean that a provisional and non-final measure would produce the same consequences as those of a final criminal conviction. This would be an unacceptable draw and in flagrant violation of the principle of the rule of law. Such a situation is not only not allowed, but would create a very dangerous precedent: any security measure against a mayor, coupled with his detention for a period of three months, would be enough to consider him a "serious violation", paving the way for his dismissal.

79. This approach would not only undo the presumption of innocence, but would transform security measures into political instruments to interrupt mandates won by popular vote, directly violating the principle of local autonomy and the sovereignty of the voters themselves. There is 28 It is no coincidence that the law has clearly provided that only the conviction with a final criminal decision constitutes a reason for dismissal: this is a single moment in which the criminal process has reached an indisputable conclusion, where individual responsibility has been finally established by the court. Any interpretation that expands this circle to include detention or other security measures is inherently unconstitutional, because it creates new grounds for dismissal that the Constitution does not recognize.

80. Moreover, that interpretation would lead to a distortion of the meaning of the notion of 'serious breach of law'. A serious violation is the behavior of a functionary that contradicts constitutional or legal norms in such a way that violates the integrity of the mandate and the trust of the citizens. But a functionary who is absent because he is in custody, without yet having a guilty verdict, has not committed such a violation; He is simply in a temporary state of restriction of liberty for procedural reasons. To treat this condition as a "serious offense" is to attribute guilt to a person at a stage when the law still considers them innocent. Therefore, any interpretation that equates absence from office for three months because he is under a measure of detention, with a serious violation for the effect of dismissal, is not only incompatible with the Constitution, but directly violates the foundations of the rule of law, stripping even the principle of the presumption of innocence from any real value and transforming it into a formal statement without protective power.

81. The Council of Ministers has completely overlooked the restrictive nature of Article 115 of the Constitution. This article is conceived as a norm numerus clausus, which not only determines the causes of dismissal, but also "closes the door" for any other reason that is not provided for therein. At the moment when the Constitution has said that dismissal is allowed "for serious violations of the Constitution or the law," it has raised an exclusionary standard: any other cause, unrelated to such a violation, is automatically unconstitutional. By treating the objective absence of the president, caused by detention, as a serious violation, the Council of Ministers has acted as if it had the right to create a new reason for dismissal, beyond those that the Constitution has provided and that the law has concretized in some cases. This expansion of the scope of Article 62 transforms the legal provision from an implementation norm to an independent creation norm, which is neither foreseen nor allowed by the Constitution.

82. The moment the Council of Ministers uses Article 62 as an independent basis to justify a dismissal, without linking it to the constitutional criterion of "serious violation", it not only distorts this article, but also turns ordinary law into a source of competence beyond the Constitution. This is unacceptable in a state of law, where the Constitution is the supreme source and ordinary laws have only a concretizing role. A direct consequence of this approach is a violation of legal certainty and predictability. The elected officials, but also the citizens who have 29 After voting, they should know in advance and clearly under what conditions their mandate can be terminated prematurely. If today it is allowed for absence due to a detention, an objective state independent of the will of the official, to be considered as a serious violation, tomorrow the same thing may happen for a long illness, an accident, or any other circumstance that temporarily prevents the chairman from exercising his function. This means that the standard is no longer foreseen, but mobile, depending on the next political interpretation. In this way, the elected mandate loses its constitutional stability and local autonomy becomes dependent on the central executive.

83. In essence, by circumventing Article 115, the Council of Ministers has not acted simply in the absence of a legal basis, but has directly violated the hierarchy of sources of law, the constitutional guarantees of local autonomy and the legal certainty of elected representatives. This is a triple mistake: formal, because the decision is not based on the right article; material, because the objective absence does not constitute a serious violation; and functional, because it creates uncertainty and a dangerous precedent for the future of local institutions.

For the above, finally, WE ASK:

The repeal of the decision of the Council of Ministers no. 539, dated 25.09.2025 "On the dismissal from office of the Mayor of Tirana, Mr. Erion Veliaj", as incompatible with the Constitution.

ERION VELIAJ