The untouchability of power vs. the rule of law, the Balluku case and the risk to democracy!

✍️ By Kristina Nano

Chair of LRE - Rinisja | PhD Candidate in Leadership, James Madison University (JMU), USA

What is the Balluku case really telling us?

The suspension from office of Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku by the Special Court Against Corruption and Organized Crime (GJKKO), as a precautionary measure in an investigation into alleged corruption in the Llogara Tunnel project, has ignited a new debate over the limits of executive power in Albania, and over what kind of democracy Albanians are actually living in, a rule-of-law republic or a system of untouchable power.

Prime Minister Edi Rama has called this measure “a dangerous absurdity”, “unprecedented anywhere” and “a glaring display of democratic immaturity”, insisting that courts must not be allowed to suspend ministers and that only the Prime Minister (or a final criminal judgment) can remove a member of the cabinet.

In essence, he articulates a doctrine in which the executive is declared practically untouchable by any judicial measure until the very end of the criminal process.

If this is accepted, the separation of powers becomes mere window dressing, not a shield for citizens.

We are therefore faced with three fundamental questions:

• Is the suspension of a minister under investigation a violation of the separation of powers, or a sign that the rule of law is maturing?

• Does any European standard actually protect a minister’s “practical immunity” from precautionary measures?

• Do we want a republic where power is controlled by law, or an order in which those at the top are treated as sacred until they choose to leave?

In what follows, I examine the case from four angles, the legal–constitutional, the misused “European” arguments, the ethics of power, and contemporary leadership theory.

Separation of powers, protective principle or refuge for impunity?

The Prime Minister takes shelter behind the doctrine of separation of powers to claim that courts are, in his words, “taking his competencies”, that is, encroaching on his prerogatives.

But the separation of powers was never created to shield governments from the law.

Montesquieu saw separation as a web of checks against any drift toward absolutism, not as a concrete wall insulating the executive from judicial scrutiny.

Government arises from a parliamentary majority, but “democratic will” is not a blank cheque for immunity from law.

In a democratic order:

• ministers bear political responsibility before the Prime Minister and Parliament;

• and when they are suspected of serious wrongdoing, they must be exposed to legal responsibility as well, in real time, not only years later in theory.

The GJKKO’s decision to suspend did not “choose” the government.

It asked a narrower but essential question, can a high official under criminal investigation continue in office, even temporarily, without jeopardising evidence, exerting undue influence, or eroding public trust in the institution they lead?

If the honest answer is “no”, then suspension is not a usurpation of the Prime Minister’s prerogatives.

It is the court exercising its duty to protect the constitutional order from abuse of power.

A separation of powers that renders the executive untouchable is not balance.

It is distortion.

What does the law allow, what does the Constitution demand?

The Code of Criminal Procedure provides for suspension from duty as a precautionary measure when the court assesses that:

• remaining in office could affect evidence;

• could facilitate repetition of the offence;

• or seriously undermines confidence in the public body.

The Justice Reform was designed precisely to break the culture of impunity among senior officials.

The Constitution stipulates that ministers are appointed and dismissed by the President on the proposal of the Prime Minister, but it does not create any substantive immunity from criminal precautionary measures.

Until the Constitutional Court speaks, the GJKKO decision enjoys the presumption of legality.

The claim that “the court is taking the Prime Minister’s competencies” confuses two different planes:

• Appointment and dismissal are political acts.

• Suspension as a precautionary measure is a procedural act, tied to criminal risk, not to political favour.

In consolidated democracies, when a minister is accused in a major scandal, they will usually resign.

This preserves the dignity of governance and allows the investigation to proceed independently.

In the absence of a culture of resignation, the judiciary is forced to do what politics will not, to impose, temporarily, the necessary distance between power and investigation.

It may be a path we have never walked before.

It is precisely the path that must be walked if we truly want to end the culture of untouchable ministers.

The “European” sophistries: Venice, Strasbourg and the facts

To bolster his thesis, the Prime Minister has invoked the Venice Commission and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, implying that “Europe” prohibits judicial suspension of ministers.

What do we actually know for certain?

• There is no specific opinion of the Venice Commission that bans suspension as a precautionary measure for a minister under investigation.

• There is no general European norm that treats members of government as immune from preventive criminal measures.

Venice consistently warns against instrumentalising the judiciary for political warfare, but it also warns against using the separation of powers as a fig leaf for lack of accountability.

Strasbourg demands proportionality, any measure that affects the functioning of democratic institutions must be justified and necessary.

In the Balluku case, the court’s decision may be debated, but it is not, in itself, “unthinkable”.

Whether the balance between institutional stability and anti-corruption is right is for the Constitutional Court to decide, not for the Prime Minister’s microphones and monologues.

Two points are clear:

• Venice has never prohibited judicial suspension of ministers.

• Strasbourg does not, by default, consider a precautionary measure against a senior official to be anti-democratic, so long as proportionality is respected.

Europe does not defend the idea of untouchable ministers.

It defends the premise that no branch of power, neither the judiciary nor the executive, can shield itself from the law with its own rhetoric, however polished.

The ethics of power and leadership theory

Max Weber wrote that a politician needs three qualities: passion, a sense of responsibility, and a sense of proportion.

In our case, the Prime Minister’s passion for defending his team is obvious.

The question is whether responsibility to the law and sense of proportion match that passion.

Weber distinguishes between:

• the ethic of conviction, loyalty to one’s cause or inner principle, often without fully weighing the consequences;

• and the ethic of responsibility, assessing the real impact of one’s actions on the order and on society.

When Rama frames the case of a minister under investigation as a “matter between me and her”, he pushes us into the ethic of partisan conviction, sidelining the ethic of responsibility toward the public, how does this shape the image of government, what standard does it set for tomorrow, what signal does it send to citizens and to the civil service?

Modern leadership theories sharpen this contrast.

• Transformational leadership (Burns, Bass) calls on leaders to elevate followers to a higher moral level.

A transformational leader would say:

“We are the first to submit to the law. None of us will use our office as a shield against investigation.”

• Servant leadership (Greenleaf) asks:

“Do people become freer, more just, more capable because of the way I lead?”

When the head of government attacks a court to protect a minister, service to society is replaced by service to the inner circle.

• Ethical leadership (Brown & Treviño) measures the leader against the coherence between word and deed, and the willingness to accept limits and oversight.

The message “the court has no right to touch us” runs directly against any standard of ethical leadership.

• Adaptive leadership (Heifetz) sees crisis as an opportunity for learning and adjustment. Instead of using the Balluku case to raise standards and transparency, the Prime Minister uses it to expand the zone of political immunity.

Through all four lenses, a good leader sees legal oversight as a guarantee of trust, not as a threat to their position.

In this sense, Rama’s stance is not only a legal problem.

It is a symptom of a leadership style in which loyalty to the inner circle is valued more than the freedom and trust of all citizens.

In democratic terms, it normalises a hierarchy of loyalty over law.

That is the exact opposite of what citizens are told a democracy is supposed to be.

Hannah Arendt and the sliding truth

Hannah Arendt warned that the risk in modern societies lies in the loss of the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, not necessarily in open violence.

When citizens no longer know what to believe, they become easy to manipulate.

In the narrative the Prime Minister is constructing, the focus shifts:

• from the question “Is there corruption here?”

• to the question “Why does the court dare to touch a minister?”

Corruption is thus relativised, while legal oversight is problematised.

In Arendt’s language, this is the moment when the public is taught to distrust the instrument of control more than the abuse being controlled.

When an elected leader delegitimises courts every time they get close to power, he is carrying out precisely what Arendt calls the erosion of truth, he spreads doubt not about those who have the power to do harm, but about those who are obliged to limit that power.

Soft authoritarianism and state capture

Formally, Albania is a parliamentary democracy, periodic elections, party pluralism, private media.

But the Balluku case reveals clear symptoms of soft authoritarianism:

• the executive reacts aggressively to a judicial decision that affects its inner circle;

• the very idea that ministers can be subject to precautionary measures without a final judgment is rejected;

• the Constitutional Court is placed under public pressure to “correct” a lower court before it has even spoken.

In the literature on state capture, one of the main indicators is precisely this, when the executive seeks to neutralise every body that imposes accountability, whether media, judiciary, or independent oversight institutions.

If this precedent were branded unconstitutional, the de facto message would be:

“Ministers cannot be touched, even temporarily, however serious the suspicions, until a long criminal process has run its course.”

That standard is incompatible with a genuine rule-of-law state.

It is a step back, toward a culture in which “the big men” appeared only in the news, never in the dock.

If such a standard is accepted, every loudly proclaimed reform becomes pure façade. Rule-of-law rhetoric would remain, but its substance would evaporate.

Democracy would survive as procedure, but wither as a culture of accountability.

Restarting the Republic requires leaders who can be touched by the law

The Balluku case is not just a technical constitutional dispute.

It is a test of a political culture.

The essential question is not:

“Is the suspension of a minister legally permissible?”

but rather:

Are we willing to accept that even those at the top can and must be touched by the law when there are serious suspicions?

Legal analysis suggests that the GJKKO decision can be defended on the basis of law and proportionality.

Philosophical analysis shows that the claim to untouchability contradicts the ethic of a responsible leader.

Leadership theory indicates that a Prime Minister who attacks the courts to protect his minister is not leading as a servant of the public, but as a shield for his caste.

If this case is read as an opportunity to strengthen the rule of law, Albania takes a step forward. If it is exploited to tie the judiciary’s hands as soon as they reach for the table of power, Albania takes a step toward soft authoritarianism.

A true Restart of the Republic demands a new culture of leadership:

• leaders who see legal oversight over themselves as a privilege of democracy, not a nuisance;

• ministers who understand that office is not a shelter from justice, but an extra reason to accept transparency;

• citizens who realise that the only legitimate “immunity” is that of a clean conscience.

Without such leaders, the “Restart” remains a slogan, not a constitutional reality.

Only if we accept this standard will the word “reform” step down from posters and empty propaganda and enter our daily lives, and its measure will no longer be speeches, but the way this country treats precisely those who, until yesterday, were called “untouchable”.

Only then will “the untouchables” be replaced by a republic in which no one stands above the law, neither minister, nor Prime Minister, nor judge, and in which each of them bears responsibility before the same principle, the rule of law, not the rule of man.

Kristina Nano

Chair of LRE - Rinisja | PhD Candidate in Leadership, James Madison University (JMU), USA