The purpose of monitoring

The purpose of this monitoring is to identify the cases of Official Acts not published in Official Journals of 2006, 2007 and 2008, differently from constitutional provision and the requirements stated in:

1. Law No. 8502, dated 29.6.1999, “On the Establishment of the State Publication Center”, amended by Law no. 9091, dated 26.6.2003,
2. Law No. 9000, dated 30.1.2003 “On the organisation and functioning of the Council of Ministers”.

In the focus of this monitoring is the practice of publication of acts issued by the two most important state institutions: the Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

The aim of this monitoring, first of its type ever done in Albania, is to bring to evidence in quantity and quality terms Laws and / or Decisions of the Council of Ministers which, pursuant to legislation in force, should have been published in the Official Journal, but which are not, in fact .

The monitoring technique (verification) applied in this project context is an inter-relation of two components:

1. Methodological verification (of schematic character) based on acts’ numeric index criterion
2. A case by case investigation of journalistic character, comparing data deriving from at least two sources.

This inter-relation represents an innovative practice in the approach that specialised operators of civil society, like Center for Publication Issues, have decided to implement in view of the truth, public opinion and legitimate state institutions in Albania.

But let us return to the non-publication of acts in the Official Journal, which may occur for two reasons:

1. Institutions issuing these acts have not forwarded them for publication, thus violating the constitutional and legal provision according to which they shall submit these acts for publication “within 3 days and in no case later than 15 days from the day of their approval.” (There is an exception made for the Council of Ministers’ draft (project) laws which are submitted to Parliament for approval and the decisions on “agreements’ approvals in principle..”.)

1. State Publication Center itself has not accomplished its main mission, which is the publication of the Official Acts in the Official Journal within 30 days from their submission. (We underline again that a publication is considered to be official only when it is printed on paper, as the only mode (format) foreseen by the Law that may generate legal consequences.)

This project does not intend to identify which of the two above-mentioned reasons is more frequently noticed in practice. In other words, it is not the aim of this project to identify and disclose the causes leading to the non-publication of Official Acts in the Official Journal as required by the Law in force. This will be subject of another monitoring within the framework of this initiative. (The CII has developed an exclusively authentic methodology to identify and disclose the causes leading to non-publication of Official Acts in the Official Journal pursuant to the Law in force).

The afore-said project aims to identify and show the consequences generated from non-observation of the legal frame on Official publications in the Republic of Albania during (within) the monitored period 2006, 2007 and 2008.  Presentation of the consequences in the context of this project will be restricted only to quantitative and qualitative identification (wherever possible) of Official Acts not published in the Official Journal. In other words, this project shows “how many” and possibly, where possible, “what” laws and / or decisions of the Council of Ministers have not been published in the Official Journal over 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Furthermore, this project does not make a qualitative analysis of the generated or missing effects of the Official Acts which are not published in Official Journal. Likewise, identification and presentation of the consequences here does not mean, let’s say, what is the damage caused to the state budget from a DCM with a certain financial connotation  which has possibly generated certain effects prior entering first into force though normal publication procedure in the Official Journal. This will be subject of a next coming monitoring that will be conducted by Center for Public Information Issues (the organisation has also developed an authentic methodology on identification and presentation of consequences, in accordance to such clarification, as noted in this paragraph.)
 
In addition, the Project does not intent to identify and/or expose cases of law violation concerning the time terms (deadline) set for acts’ publication in the Official Journal. This means that acts which are already published in the Official Journal are not analysed any further to find whether they have been submitted for publication within the deadlines set by the law. This, too, will be subject of another monitoring attempt within the framework this initiative. (Center for Public Information Issues has developed its authentic methodology on identification and analyses of law-breaching cases in violation of law provisions in terms of time limits for publication of Official Acts).

This project does not intent to examine at what extend the analogue system (Official Journal in paper) and digital system (electronic archive on line and Official Journals on PDF) are identical copies of one another. In the practice of this monitoring empirical data has been collected of which we think that would be of great importance to dealt with in the framework of another follow up monitoring that would test the reliability of the on line  publication systems.

This very project limits itself to "scan" only the situation of state publications field focusing on two main state institutions: Parliament and Council of Ministers. In the framework of a next coming project will be "scanned" all spectrum of the Albanian state institutions, whose official acts are subject to publication in the Official Journal.