By Ylli Manjani
There is no greater crisis in a republic than the moment when justice ceases to be a constitutional power and becomes a parallel order.
This is exactly what we have built in the 2016 Constitution. Not a justice system that balances powers, but an architecture that has taken itself out of constitutional balance. A republic within a republic.
In the name of the fight against corruption, the Constitution was filled with special mechanisms, special structures, special prosecutors, special courts and special governing bodies. But the “special”, which in any serious democracy should be a temporary exception, was frozen in our country as a permanent normality. This is the fundamental deviation of a constitutional republic.
It is one thing to create extraordinary instruments for extraordinary situations, and quite another to institutionalize the exception forever. At that moment, the republic is deformed. And that is exactly where we have arrived.
We have a system where the special prosecution is not really controlled by anyone. The special courts, theoretically built as a constitutional filter of the prosecution, in practice, but also due to special laws, often behave as a procedural extension of the SPAK/prosecution.
Special prosecutors have become the gravitational center of the criminal justice system. They investigate, orient the public narrative, dictate the political rhythm, and produce institutional fear, while accountability remains an orphan. They are answerable to no one.
This is why the phrase “Republic of SPAK” was born. Not as a propaganda slogan, but as a perception created by the constitutional architecture itself. Because when an institution amasses power without real control mechanisms, the republic begins to seem like an appendage to it.
Here one of the most serious failures of the reform comes to light: the KLP.
The High Prosecutorial Council does not govern the prosecution. It misleads it. It has no organic connection with the real life of the prosecution institution. It does not direct investigative work, does not hold accountable for spectacular failures, does not guarantee functional unity or professional discipline. It is a bureaucratic body that produces procedures, but not direction.
In theory it was intended as a guarantee against political capture. In practice it produced a headless prosecutor's office. An organism where no one really leads and no one is really accountable.
Personnel policy has become a mess. Appointments, transfers, careers, and responsibilities are not related to the functional efficiency of the institution.
Meanwhile, the KLP itself bears no burden for the procedural chaos, delays, double standards, or lack of coherence in criminal prosecution.
A serious prosecutor's office does not function as a horizontal forum without authority. The prosecutor's office functions like a good clinic where doctors learn, coordinate, and are disciplined around the professional authority of the one with the most experience and responsibility.
This is exactly how healthy public prosecution systems around the world work.
The prosecution must have direction. It must have a functional hierarchy.
There must be identifiable responsibilities.
Therefore, if there is one reform that urgently needs to be made, it is the return of the prosecution service under the real leadership of the Prosecutor General. The Prosecutor General's Office should be the center of the state's criminal policy and not a ceremonial office that watches from afar the fragmentation of the system.
District prosecutors should be led by leaders with real professional experience and be part of a clear chain of responsibility.
The Attorney General's instructions should be binding, not academic suggestions without practical effect. Only in this way can there be a unique standard, functional discipline, and personnel policy with state logic.
Justice cannot be built on the idea that no one obeys anyone. This is not independence. It is irresponsibility. The point is, who will hold accountable the scumbag prosecutor who, in the courtroom, mocks the rights of the defendant and the authority of the court by saying that "the GJKO is a 5-star hotel"?!
A democratic republic does not need unchecked prosecutors. It needs independent, but also accountable, prosecutors. It needs strong courts, but not untouchable castes. It needs justice that serves the republic, not a republic that revolves around justice.
The system as it is built today does not produce balance. It produces fear, institutional confusion, and power without accountability.
And any power without responsibility, sooner or later, deforms the republic.
