Civil rights between legal provisions and political reality in Albania

Abstract

One of the basic principles of civil rights is that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. The life protection, liberty and property should be equally guaranteed to citizens to exclude discrimination of minorities or other parts of the population. These rights are an important part of civil liberties and are considered as an essential element for effective citizenship. Arbitrary arrest, terror, torture or other serious and unlawful interference, both by state and private actors, significantly affect the well-being of democracy as it affects the very essence of it. In liberal democracies, leaders legitimized by the people must be involved within the norms and principles of the rule of law in order to establish a healthy relationship between the state and the citizen. This relationship is considered to be damaged in non-liberal democracies as it is affected by the suspension of individual freedoms and rights. This paper aims to analyze whether these individual rights are guaranteed and protected in Albania, considering from the perspective of the legal framework as well as in the political reality. This study aims to analyze the development of human rights, judicial rights and their implementation in our country to come to the conclusion, whether our system is that of a liberal democracy or not.

Keywords

• civil rights; human rights; illiberal democracy; individual freedoms; individual rights; liberal democracy; rule of law