Gashi Condemns Abuse of Procedural Points in the Assembly

The Speaker of the Assembly, Afrim Gashi, commented on the events at today’s session dedicated to parliamentary questions, during which MPs from the opposition Albanian parties blocked proceedings. The blockade followed after it was pointed out that Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski had not given a written answer to Ilire Dauti of the Albanian League to a question from a previous session, even though, according to the Rules of Procedure, the deadline for that is 20 days.

Gashi said that the frequent coordinations and pauses during the day for parliamentary questions are not standard practice and warned that procedural remarks are increasingly being used as political blockades rather than as protection of procedure.

The purpose in the Rules and the abuse

He called for the procedural mechanism for raising procedural points to be used exactly for the purpose for which it is intended — for coordinators and MPs to point out if they believe the Rules of Procedure have been violated, and not to use this opportunity for political blocking.

"Unfortunately, that mechanism is already becoming a political instrument and is being abused. We will need to find a way to confine it to the meaning contained in the Rules of Procedure — that coordinators use it whenever they want to point out a procedure, and not to express political positions or to block sessions," Gashi said.

He noted that the day for parliamentary questions is primarily intended for the opposition, which, according to the two-to-one ratio, has the greatest space to ask questions and hold the Government to account.

Responding to allegations that certain acts in the Albanian language lacked his signature, Gashi denied this: "No, it is the opposite. In the Assembly the Albanian language is fully respected, exactly as provided by law," concluded the Speaker of the Assembly.

Today’s session ended early after several interruptions. The coordinator of the parliamentary group of the ZNAM movement, Boban Karapejovski, requested a new one-hour break because, he said, the right to raise a procedural point during the day had been "absolutely abused", which led to "unnecessary raising of tensions and politicization of the whole work in Parliament." Deputy Speaker Vesna Bendevska noted that the break would extend beyond regular working hours (until 6 p.m.) and officially closed the session. Ilire Dauti remained at the podium, insisting that she would not give up until Mickoski answered her in writing, which practically blocked the segment for parliamentary questions.

Photo: Assembly