Industrial business in Albania, which is represented by Konfindustria, backs the passing of the constitutional amendments for the judicial reform by the parliament of Albania. Konfindustria is the largest organization of Albanian and foreign industrial businesses in Albania. Its head, Gjergj Buxhuku, in spite of the fact that he’s positive about the reform, says that “we must be restrained and careful in our expectations for its immediate and guaranteed success of implementing it in the economic, political and social reality in Albania”. Buxhuku says that public interests are damaged not only by breaking the law and criminal offenses of any nature. He says that public interests are mostly being damaged by the so called phenomenon of “capturing the state”, which according to Buxhuku, is being done through the laws that are being passed.

Buxhuku explains his criticism: “This means that the political class legitimizes through laws the violation of public interest, making the impact of other mechanisms, expected to be made effective by the judicial reform, very hard”.

For Buxhuku, a clear example for this is the legal inability to void tens of concessions, tenders, etc, that the head of Konfindustria says that “they have been clearly given and can be given in open conflict with the public interest”. Another thing that Buxhuku mentions is the fact that “the justice system in Albania has been built and has functioned in order to legitimize the way in which the economic system in Albania has been built, by enabling the survival of large numbers of the population after the dramatic changes at the start of the ‘90s”.

The head of Konfindustria says that at least 50% of the Albanian economy is informal.  Under these circumstances, he says that the reform in justice must be accompanied by a short term plan, perhaps a “Marshal Plan” of economic and financial aid. Some analysts say that the reform in justice will speed up the slow steps that Albania has made in its EU accession. But Buxhuku believes that this reform is not only linked to this, but also to the idea of an official unification with Kosovo:

“In order for the reform to be successful and sustainable in the long run, besides giving way to the joint accession of the two countries in the EU, we must also look into making a ‘de jure’ unification between Albania and Kosovo to take place as soon as possible”.

According to Buxhuku, this “would have an immediate impact in overcoming the trap of ‘small numbers’ which unfortunately today favors interests between clans and damage public interest in every country and which have also made it impossible to create true democratic institutions in Albania and Kosovo, including the justice system”. The fact foreign experts elected by EU and USA, thanks to the constitutional amendments, will have a decisive role, is seen as a positive thing by the business sector. “Also, he adds, this presence makes business lobbying in the EU and USA stronger, in order to penetrate unexploited markets, especially in circumstances when business in Albania is facing unfair competition and incompetence in political decision making to build equilibrating strategies”