Guaranteeing the Judgment of Civil Cases Within a Reasonable Time as a Requirement of the Right to a Fair Trial in Albania

Abstract

Guaranteeing the fundamental rights and freedoms is one of the preconditions for the existence of the rule of law in a democratic society. Our paper tries to analyze how is the right to a fair trial guaranteed as far as it concerns the requirement that civil cases should be judged within a reasonable time. Compared to criminal law, civil law in Albania still lacks concrete time – limits within which the judgment of a civil case should necessarily end. The lack of such concrete time limits, is one of the principal causes for the delay of the civil judgments beyond a reasonable time, which represents itself a violation not only of the Constitution as a primary act regulating the fundamental rights in our country, but also of other conventional acts such as the European Convection of Human Rights, which enjoys a position of particular significance in Albanian Constitution compared to the other international acts that have been ratified in our country. Considering the fact that for the subjects of law the provision of justice within a reasonable time by the respective authorities, is considered almost as important as the right itself at that point that it is fair to affirm that “justice too long delayed is justice denied”, we have found of particular interest to involve in our research also some possible suggestions on which are the types of measures we consider could be the most efficient to be taken in order to improve the judgment of civil cases within a reasonable time in our country. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n3p509