The Administrative Court of the First Instance in Tirana yesterday gave its judgment regarding the case of the TOKA association against the National Agency of Protected Areas (AKZM) and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MTM) for the construction of HPPs in the Valley of Valbona.
The court has decided to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the TOKA association, on the pretext that it did not present sufficient evidence for this issue.
In this lawsuit, the activists claim that the National Agency of Protected Areas (AKZM) has not implemented the law, since the works in the Valbona Valley should have been suspended last summer, when the permission of the private company to build in this territory expired.
The lawsuit is the first of its kind to test the new protected areas law, which was passed in 2017 and according to him the National Agency of Protected Areas (AKZM) should stop all hydropower plants inside the National Parks.
In court sessions, just like Citizens Channel has reported earlier , none of the defendants, which are the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MTM) and the National Agency for Protected Areas (AKZM), were present in the room, but only the legal representative of the private company that is building the HPPs, Gener 2, which sought to be involved in the case as a secondary intervener.
The lawyer of the Gener 2 company during the court hearings expressed the claim that TOKA is just an organization and has no right to sue the state.
When asked by the Citizens Channel, the representative of the TOKA association, Liridon Mustafaj, regarding this claim by the lawyer of the GEner 2 company, stated that "The claim that TOKA is just an organization and has no right to attack the state is something absurd on its part. We are an organization, we are a civil society and normally we have the right. "
This claim of the Gener 2 company was also rejected by the Administrative Court.
Gener 2's lawyer claims that the National Agency of Protected Areas (AKZM) has monitored the hydropower construction project. But the TOKA association on its Facebook page stated that there is no verification of any such monitoring. "TOKA has requested copies of monitoring reports required by law from IKMT many times. We were told that the company is sending out regular "self-monitoring" reports, but we were never allowed to see any copies. That's why we've made another oner lawsuit against IKMT for not performing inspections. If IKMT had inspected, they would surely have noticed the lack of a valid construction permit".
According to activists, the battle for the construction of hydropower plants in the Valbona Valley will continue again.
"These are no longer a surprise to us, but still we will continue our fight against the carnage that continues to build there. These projects must be handled by the state as soon as possible because they are outside any kind of standard", Mustafaj told Citizens Channel.
The Valbona Valley issue was addressed 3 weeks ago at the Brussels conference at the European Parliament, where environmental activists and representatives of the TOKA association were present.
Regarding the discussions at this conference, Mustafaj stated that: "The Green Party of the European Parliament has promised us in Brussels that they will seriously focus on these projects in the Balkans, especially in Albania, as it is the largest extension of HPPs and the contracts are outside any kind of standard".
In order to stop the construction of HPPs in the Valbona Valley, environmental activists have taken the initiative to sign a petition addressed to Prime Minister Edi Rama. So far, 3,532 citizens have signed this petition.
*Citizens Channel /EK/
