Introduction

• Author: Baci, Entela
• Pages: 5-9

5

1 Introduction

1.1 Basic structure of the national legal system

The Republic of Albania (RoA) has a formal constitution, which has the highest legal power

in the country.1 The Constitution was adopted in 1998 with Law No. 8417, ‘Constitution of

the Republic of Albania’. So far, it has been revised five times.2 None of the five

constitutional reforms concerned gender equality.

The hierarchy of legal acts within the country is explicitly set out in Article 116(1) of the

Albanian Constitution:

a) the Constitution;

b) ratified international agreements;

c) laws;

d) normative acts of the Council of Ministers.

The constitutional framework concerning gender equality/sex discrimination contains only

one provision among the general principles of fundamental human rights and freedoms,

Article 18, which refers to principle of equality and non-discrimination:

‘1. All are equal before the law.

2. No one can be unjustly discriminated against for reasons such as gender, race,

religion, ethnicity, language, political, religious or philosophical beliefs, economic

condition, education, social status, or ancestry.

3. No one may be discriminated against for reasons mentioned in Paragraph 2 if

reasonable and objective legal grounds do not exist.’

As is clear, gender is mentioned explicitly as a protected discrimination ground in Article

18(2) of the Albanian Constitution. The list of the protected grounds mentioned in Article

18(2) is a closed list. In 2016, there was an initiative of at least one fifth of the

parliamentarians to make this list an open one by adding several grounds of protection

from discrimination. The Special Parliamentary Commission for the Justice Reform decided

to request the opinion of the Venice Commission on the draft constitutional provisions.3

The revised draft sent to the Venice Commission contained the following additional

grounds:4

‘gender identity, sexual orientation, social origin, birth, disability, (…) or for other

reasons.’

However, the initiative was not passed, because it did not get the necessary approval by

parliamentarians when the constitutional amendments of 2016 were discussed in the

1 Constitution of the Republic of Albania, Law No. 8417, dated 21.10.1998, as amended, Article 4(2) ‘The

Constitution is the highest law in the Republic of Albania’. The English version available at:

https://euralius.eu/index.php/en/library/albanian-legislation/send/9-constitution/178-constitution-of-the-

republic-of-albania-en.

2 The Albanian Constitution was revised five times with the following amending laws: Law No. 9675, dated

13.1.2007; Law No. 9404, dated 21.4.2008; Law No. 88/2012, dated 18.9.2012; Law No. 137/2015, dated

17.12.2015; and Law No. 76/2016, dated 22.7.2016.

3 The Special Parliamentary Commission for Justice Reform in Albania created in 2014 a group of high level

experts (national and international) who prepared a draft-revision law on the related constitutional

provisions and asked to previously take the opinion of the Venice Commission. Thus, the Special

Parliamentary Commission for Justice Reform with its Decision No. 17 dated 28.9.2015 sent a request for

opinion to the Venice Commission on the draft constitutional revisions. These draft constitutional revisions

concerned mainly the justice reform, but it was presented also an amendment to Article 18(2) of protected

grounds for discrimination.

4 European Commission for Democracy through Law, CDL-REF (2016)008. The draft amendments were

submitted to the Venice Commission on 12.1.2016. A consolidated version of the Constitution of Albania

integrating the draft constitutional amendments is available at:

https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL-REF(2016)008-e.