By Boldnews.al
Fatos Lulo, a member of the Constitutional Court since 2013, is one of the judges to have voted against the new Justice Reform and Vetering laws. He was appointed to the Constitutional Court in 2013 and will be the first judge to face the Vetering commission at the hearing, set for Wednesday, 10.00am.
Pursuant to the Law on Vetting, hearings are held when commissioners notice problems or have ambiguities in the subject’s self-declared documentation. The Vetting Committee has not made public the issues during the Fatos Lulo verification process. But it appears that his views on the constitutional court’s review of the Justice Reform laws have targeted the Vetting Commission.
Judge Lulo, along with his now-resigned colleague, Besnik Imeraj, have presented a supportive attitude to arguments put forward mainly by associations of judges and prosecutors against the “Veting” law; Law “On the Governing Bodies of the Justice System” and the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Fatos Lulo voted in favor of the request of the National Association of Judges of the Republic of Albania for the repeal as incompatible with the Constitution of Article 76, paragraph 2, of Law no. 115/2016, “Justice System Governance Components”. He also voted in favor of a request by the Union of Prosecutors, which demanded that most of the articles of the Criminal Procedure Code be amended.
Judge Lulo’s name was also published several years ago, after he declared to the High Inspectorate of Declaration and Audit of Assets a large financial sum as a gift from his sister. Judge Lulo’s sister has a large business and has signed a regular donation contract for the financial benefit in favor of her brother, then a judge at the High Court.
In 2008, Judge Lulo received a gift from her sister worth $ 100,000 and in 2009, she received another gift from her sister, a 172-square-meter office in Tirana, worth about 200,000 euros. Precisely, this financial relationship could serve as an official justification for the Welding Commission to begin hearings with Judge Lulo.
Also, Mr. Lulo is known as one of the closest people to the President of the Republic, Ilir Meta. For his colleagues, this political connection is perhaps another reason for the Vetting Commission to launch open session proceedings, precisely with Judge Fatos Lulo.
