Project description

The Institute for Development and Research Alternatives (IDRA) conducted a general public survey in order to gather insights on citizens’ knowledge, support and expectations on the ongoing efforts to reform the judicial system in the country. The survey was carried out with the financial support of the Open Society Foundation for Albania and the US Embassy in Albania. For this survey, IDRA conducted 1000 face-to-face interviews based on a national representative sample with citizens above 18 years of age. The survey was conducted between January and February, 2016.

Knowledge on judicial reform:

• Most Albanian citizens consider themselves to be “informed” about the Judicial Reform (14% “Very informed and 49% “Somewhat informed”). The main source of news on the topic is Television (95% of respondents). Social media follows with 12% of respondents overpassing more traditional media such as newspapers (9%).
• Albanian citizens believe that the EU and the American Embassy in Tirana fully support the reform (90% of them believe each of these two international actors support the reform). They are followed by “Venice Commission” (77% of respondents).
• Albanian citizens do not have a detailed knowledge on the proposed changes in the judicial reform. Only 1 in 5 citizens’ claims to be aware of any proposed changes in the proposed draft. From those who are aware, the majorities expect the General Prosecution (72%), the High Council of Justice (66%) and the High Court (65%) to be the institutions whose responsibilities and authority are expected to change the most after the reform is implemented.

Support for judicial reform:

• General public shows strong support for the need of a Judicial Reform. 91% of respondents either “fully support” (64%) or “somewhat support” (27%) the need for a judicial reform. The level of support is correlated with the level of information (the more informed, the more supportive citizens are). The support for this reform is cross-partisan including every major political affiliation (left, center and right).
• Albanian citizens believe “Judges and Prosecutors” are less interested in the reform (only 17% and 18% of citizens think these groups are “very interested” in the reform). Respondents believe that international community is more interested in the reform that any of local actors (more than 3 in 4 citizens believe that EU and US Embassy are “very interested” in the reform, while only 1 in 2, at maximum, believes that any local actor, be it government or political party, are “very interested”)
• Citizens also believe that a wide variety of interested institutions should participate in the approval of the reform. When asked how important is to get approval for the reform, from a list of interested actors, on a scale from 1 to 10 where 1=” not important” and 10 = “very important”, citizens scored, on average, 7 or higher for most actors (including main political parties, government and international community).

Expectations from the judicial reform:

• The majority of Albanian citizens (65%) is optimistic about the chances of judicial reform being approved in parliament within 2016. However, they (66%) also think that there will be groups/organizations/individuals who will try to prevent the reform from being approved in parliament.
• While optimistic about the “approval” of the reform, citizens are somehow cautious when asked whether they think the reform will be successfully implemented. On a scale from 1 to 7 where 1=not at all successful and 7=very successful, citizens give an average a score of 4.9. Their mixed feeling comes from the fact that while they agree that the reform would “fight the impunity” (79%) and would “increase the efficiency and professionalism of courts” (82%), they also think that the reform might be “a result of political negotiations which would damage its success” (52%) or that “the people within the judicial system are corrupt so the change of the system would not guarantee its improvement” (60%).