Tirana: The collapse of "Myslym Keta" street went to court as a "fait accompli".

One staircase of building number four on Muslim Keta Street was demolished today in the early hours of the morning by the Territory Protection Inspectorate. Along with it, eight other stairs are expected to collapse according to the announcement made on December 9, 2022 by means of a letter from the Inspectorate of Territory Protection in the Municipality of Tirana.

While the building was turned into ruins, the Administrative Court decided to overturn the insurance of the lawsuit initiated by the opposition and the residents for the suspension of the process, since the act had already expired.

"Today was a hearing for insurance claims, which means it was requested to suspend the demolition actions until the court examines the issue of the illegality of the acts that decided the demolition. So the illegality of the acts is not judged today. Today, only the simple fact of whether this story will be suspended or not will be judged".- said lawyer Dorian Matlija for Citizens Channel.

According to him "the court dismissed the request with the justification that the demolition has already begun and there is no longer any object to protect or suspend. So it simply rejected the request for suspension. Because it has become a fait accompli".

According to lawyer Matlija, state bodies in such cases act quickly, leaving no time for the court.

"The law in Albania does not stipulate anything that if you take it to court, everything is suspended. A separate request for suspension must be made. The thing is that these state bodies act very quickly, they don't leave time for the court. And this is a flaw in our law. We have the law backwards at this point, that we have no possibility, we are waiting for the court, the court has its time for five days, he comes and destroys it for three days and leaves, it is done. So in a way, so to speak, the public authorities have a free hand to do such a thing and they do it".- argues Matlija.

The expert reports for building number 4 contradict each other 

On November 27, 2019, building number 4 underwent the first expertise by the Construction Institute due to the damage suffered by the earthquake.

In the report-expertise, the Institute of Construction stated that the building has structural problems and is uninhabitable.

A few days later, on December 6, 2019, the Institute of Construction contradicted itself by coming out with another expert report where it emphasized that there are no problems in the structure and asked for measures to be taken to recover damages for scale 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, 4 of building number XNUMX on "Muslim Keta" street, while for the first level of the same building it was stated that there are no problems in the structure, but the apartments on the second and third floor have massive cracks in the wall defender and asked for urgent measures to be taken to repair the damages in these apartments.

On December 22, 2019, the head of the Construction Institute, Agron Hysenlliu, found that the first entrance of building four has a DS3 degree of damage, and measures were taken to repair the damage.

According to the normative act 9/2019 "On Coping with the Consequences of the Natural Disaster" and the decision of the Council of Ministers no. 634, the damage caused by the earthquake is assessed on a scale from DS1 to DS5, where DS1 is the lightest degree of damage and DS5 heavier. From scale DS1 to DS3 residents receive a fund of lek depending on the damage to repair it, but it does not lead to the collapse of the building.

The technical opposition of the in-depth act-expertise decides that building number 4 should be demolished and a new one built.

Housing process and relocation of residents 

30 families of building number 4 have been moved to the new neighborhood "5 Maji", while another 14 have not accepted the relocation according to the mayor Veliaj.

"The call is: don't be used by the politics that used you in toys and in Astiri and in the theater and in Boulevard. Come, get the new houses and live assured that these people from Gjiri t Lalzi have solved their problems".- said Veliaj via Facebook while visiting some of the families sheltered in the new May 5 buildings.

For those who stayed in building number 4, three days ago the lights and water were cut off during the night hours, paving the way for the demolition, opposed by the resistant residents.

According to lawyer Dorian Matlia, the problem on the part of the municipality lies in the process of relocating residents. The law for Social Housing clearly defines the steps followed for the relocation of residents, including giving 45 days' notice, finding alternative housing and inventorying residents' possessions in their dwellings.

"They count with inventory everything they have inside, if anything is damaged, the municipality pays them. They have not respected this law at all and this law says that when these rights of this law are violated, then you go to the administrative court and complain. But even here there is no system to suspend this action while you bring these claims to court", -says Matlija.

While it follows that the biggest problem we have is the slow system. "…while on the other hand it gets the state which is many times faster. This is the most meanness of the political level that exploits this flaw in the legislation that this state has made this legislation, to the detriment of the residents, who ultimately have no way to protect their rights. Now that the object is destroyed, what will they judge in court?"- explains Dorian Matlija.

Residents have the right to compensation, but Matlija explains that this process takes time.

"Now they have the right to compensation. Yes, the compensation for the first and second years, there is no way to get compensation, for example, for the items left in the house because no one has taken inventory and no one knows or proves what was inside the house. At least this is a violation of the municipality".

"Collapse after the earthquake"

The situation on the street "Muslim Keta" is not unheard of. The earthquake as a motive for the demolition of buildings even when they did not have a high degree of damage was also used for 41 buildings in the Kombinat. Inflating the damages with the aim of their demolition has caused a large part of the act-expertise to be overturned in court, stopping the demolition. Seven buildings in Kombinat have won the trial against Tirana Municipality, whose decisions determined the demolition of the buildings.

"In all the cases that we entered after the trial, while the palace was not yet demolished, we overthrew them in all cases by court decision. All, with expertise, with the technical opposition of the Construction Institute, with the decision of the Municipal Council, there are seven cases in the Administrative Court that have been accepted as full lawsuits. All these others are under trial, given all these others, the experts appointed by the court have said that the situation as presented by the act-expertise of the municipality is not true.- explains lawyer Matlija.

According to him, this procedure is followed the same for all buildings in Tirana under the pretext of the earthquake.

"Now the issue is that everywhere we see the same situation. In all cases, the buildings that are not damaged in that kind of degree are taken and presented as damaged in the so-called DS4 degree, and then they make some super-inflated preventive measures, as if the cost of repair is too high and there is no economic benefit. repair They go, they target a certain territory, they like that land there, I don't know who, then they get, they order a semi-in-depth expert report and they present as if this building is very damaged, as if it will cost too much to repair and with this they justify and pave the way to do these actions".- concludes Matlija.

Erisa Kryeziu

Erisa Kryeziu has completed higher studies in Journalism and Communication and Master of Science in Public Relations at the University of Tirana. She has been a journalist and project manager at Citizens.al for five years, where she reports on social issues and human rights, especially on issues of rights at work, in education, gender equality, marginalized groups, people with disabilities such as and for environmental issues. At the same time, she works as a project coordinator with a focus on youth and media education. User of new reporting techniques such as "Mobile Journalism" and citizen engagement tools in reporting (ECR-Engage Citizens Journalism).