By Boldnews.al
The production and sale of combat arms, from 2015 is punishable by maximum imprisonment up to … 50 years. The Penal Code of the Republic of Albania has maximum sentences of 35 years imprisonment or life imprisonment.
But, apparently, a slip in the Official Gazette no. 249 of 2015 in clarifying some amendments to the Criminal Code, approved by law no. 135/2015, has brought some problems to its implementation in practice.
Article 17 of this law, which amends article 278 “Unauthorized possession of weapons and ammunition”, is explicitly stated: “The production, sale, purchase, sale, delivery or receipt in any form, the trade and transportation of weapons and of ammunition, explosives, bombs or mine without the permission of the competent state organs is sentenced to prison from five to fifty years “. being considered a cripple, this legal provision can bring irreparable consequences to the rights of the accused persons. Judges, for the most part under the pressure of the executive to abandon the freedom of criminals, can use this “lapus” but have legal power to show their severity to criminality.
To date, no case has been made public for any person to be sentenced to a maximum sentence of 50 years for this offense under the provisions of Law 135/2015. However, that type of punishment is in effect and the court, if it considers it, may apply it in cases that it deems appropriate.
Article 278 of the Penal Code is one of the most discussed and changed during the last two years. The Albanian government has intensified the punishment of illegal weapons possession three times in 2013-2015, once every year.
A decision of the Constitutional Court of February 2016 abolished the amendments made to this article of the Criminal Code in 2013 and 2014. But, meanwhile, the article remained in force in the form written before 2013, together with some amendments made in 2015. In the recent amendments to the article of the Criminal Code on “Illegal Possession of Weapons”, there is a 50-year sentence, which will have to be applied if the body that issued the act, ie the Parliament does not intervene to correct lapse.
