Photo Credit: USAID/Albania   A Citizens Advocacy Office(CAO) lawyer offers advice to two of her clients concerned with corruption in their home town.

The Citizens Advocacy Office Fights Corruption

From Victims to Victors
The Citizens Advocacy Office Fights Corruption

November 2, 2003 | Elbasan, Albania

In Elbasan, Albania, a father is convicted and sent to jail for selling his own child into prostitution when she was fifteen years of age. This March the young girl denounced her father and he is now being tried in the court of law for trafficking in humans.

Her testimony would have gone no further than the police office if it had not been for the USAID-funded Citizens Advocacy Office (CAO). Often, the police keep the girls in their custody and accept bribes to either change the testimony or not record it at all.  Sometimes, they are even sold back to the pimps. They have no legal representation and no protection against constant intimidation by the police and traffickers.

This is not the case anymore. Today, CAO offers legal representation to the trafficked women. Upon their request, a CAO lawyer will provide legal advice to the client, act as witness to her testimony, ensure that the testimony goes to the custody of the court and monitor the process of representation and prosecution. Since February of this year, due to the petitioning of the CAO, these procedures are now an accepted model with the backing of the Prosecutor General.

CAO is committed to the fight against all forms of corruption. Founded in October 2001with the support of USAID through Management Systems International, they have succeeded in confronting it head on. Their approach of constantly pressuring the government and public officials through the media and public forums and providing a stage for public complaints is working.

Now corruption is being talked about openly.

“The Marathon Against Corruption” offered a chance for hundreds of people to call in and denounce corruption on a public television show.  The CAO invited the public to speak live on the program to government representatives, international donors, and CAO members, and through open dialogue discussed the serious issues of corruption while offering possible solutions. “Within six months we captured 20 percent of the Albanian audience. We could not believe the popularity,” says Kreshnik Spahiu, director of CAO. At 7:00 every Monday morning the radio was tuned in and the program became the highlight of discussion on the streets and at breakfast tables.

Ask anyone on the street what happened to the Deputy Ministry of Local Government and Decentralization after she tried to build a home illegally on the shoreline in the port city of Durres. Albanian citizens know, thanks to CAO’s massive campaign against corruption televised on the major public television programs, that she was immediately stopped and is awaiting penalty.  Municipal authorities are now under scrutiny for issuing illegal construction permits that clearly violate the zoning laws.

Many are also aware of what has happened to the former director of the state-owned Public Radio Television (R.T.SH).  After six months of CAO appealing to the prosecutor’s office and to R.T.S.H for an immediate investigation of his illegal business practices, plus mass media coverage against him, he is now paying back for his corrupt activities. Caught red-handed as he tried to pocket extra moneys earned from airing the “Magic Bingo Albania,” he was fired from his job and is currently on trial for receiving bribes in exchange for advertising footage and false contracts. A chain reaction has followed and other department heads accused of collaborating with the R.T.S.H. director have also been dismissed.

The Citizens Advocacy Office is open to the public from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. No fewer than 20 people a day come to meet the five lawyers that offer legal services to them free of charge. “I was exhausted,” said Mr. Riza Mustafai, a recent client of CAO. “For two years I went to every ministry and government institution looking for help concerning restitution for my private property.  CAO has been the only organization that has supported me.”

The majority of the complaints range from drawn out legal procedures and non-execution of court decisions, governmental reluctance in providing information concerning individual cases, to public officials’ abuse of power, conflicting property ownership and issuance of illegal construction permits. Unfortunately, CAO cannot deal with every case, but try to fairly assess the cases that qualify for further research and action. After a thorough selection process they will eventually confront the institutions involved and try to have the citizen’s complaints addressed and the infraction of the law corrected.

USAID/Albania is making anti-corruption a major cross-cutting theme in its country strategy, due to its pervasiveness and impact across all areas of democratic, social and economic development.  CAO is taking great strides in achieving restitution for the victims of corruption.   In time, Albanian citizens accused of corruption will go to trial and be punished accordingly. With the expertise and persistence of the CAO team, justice can be dealt out accordingly and those victims of corruption will finally be the victors.