The restitution of property in Albania, a continuing problem after 25 years of democracy

• Author: Mimoza Mehilli
• Position: PhD candidate UET
• Pages: 202-205

ISSN 2410-3918 Academic Journal of Business, Administration, Law and Social Sciences Vol 1 No 2

Acces online at www.iipccl.org IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania July 2015

202

e restitution of property in Albania, a continuing problem aer 25 years of

democracy

Mimoza Mehilli

PhD candidate UET

Abstract

e restitution of private property to the former owner aer 1990’s turned to be a real problem

not only for the prior owners, but also for the Albanian governments aer the communist regime.

As a result of the mistakes done from the institutions and the discrepancies of Law No. 7501 date

17.07.1991 “For the Land“ and Law No. 7698 date 15.04.1993 “For the restitution of property

to the former owners“ this problem is still not resolved denitely. Aer 25 years of democracy

this problem should be solved as in other ex communist countries. e long line of cases in the

Albanian courts and Court of the Human Rights in Strasburg show that this problem needs to be

resolved very fast, because of the economic damage that has caused to the Albanian state budget.

is paper aims to highlight the problems with the property restitution, especially the cases in the

Court of Human Rights and to make a clear picture of the problem and also to show the measures

that the Albanian state has taken to solve this problem.

Keywords: Private property, economic development, political transition, legitimate owner, Court of

Human Rights.

Introduction

Private property remains one of the unresolved issues of Albanian society aer 1990’s and

a source of conicts. A legacy lost in the years of the communist regime turned into one

of the main problems of society and government. In none of the other ex-Communist

countries has the process of restitution of property caused so many damages.

During the communist regime, the nationalization of property culminated with the

collectivization of property forming Agricultural Cooperatives and farms. But the

particular thing was the power that the Albanian communist rulers had on this property,

which would be envied even from the greatest monarchs in the world. Despite the way

the communists acted with the property, it was still there, not lost but transformed and

looted.

In other ex-communist countries aer the fall of the socialist regime the property was

restituted to the owner, immediately aer the new democratic governments came into

power. In Albania, none of the governments aer 1990’s did completely resolve this

important issue. e laws aer the ’90’s even though gave the possibility to the former

owners to require their property or their parents’ properties were not applicable because

of the disagreements that law No. 7698 “For the compensation and restitution of the

property to the former owners” date 15.4. 1993 and law No. 7501 “For the Land” date

19.7.91 had with each other and made it impossible to restitute the physical property in

the actual condition.