Background
Izet Kadana served as a judge at the Pukë District Court in Albania from 1994 and as its President from 2016. As part of Albania’s sweeping judicial vetting process under the Vetting Act — designed to root out corruption and assess the integrity of the judiciary — the Independent Qualification Commission (IQC) dismissed him from office on 20 December 2018. Kadana appealed to the Special Appeal Chamber (SAC), the body established to review IQC decisions.
During the appeal proceedings, Kadana discovered that one of the SAC panel members, judge L.D., had himself been dismissed from judicial office by the High Council of Justice in December 1997 — a fact L.D. had concealed during his interview for appointment to the SAC — and that L.D. lacked the required 15 years of professional experience. In January 2020, Kadana filed a formal recusal request to remove L.D. from the panel. The SAC rejected that request, holding that the grounds raised went to L.D.’s mandate and competence rather than his impartiality, and that they did not constitute a violation of Kadana’s fair trial rights.
The SAC ultimately upheld Kadana’s dismissal on 4 March 2020. Subsequent criminal proceedings against L.D. resulted in his conviction for forging documents (upheld through Albania’s final appellate courts), his suspension from the SAC in July 2020, and his eventual dismissal from that office in May 2022. Kadana then brought a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the SAC bench that decided his case had not been a “tribunal established by law” within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
The Court’s Holding
The Court unanimously held that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention on account of L.D.’s participation in the SAC bench that examined Kadana’s vetting appeal. The Court dismissed the Government’s preliminary objection of non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, finding that Kadana had adequately raised the issue under section 27 of the Vetting Act — the main domestic provision governing recusal of SAC judges — and was not additionally required to seek review of the SAC’s final judgment under the Code of Civil Procedure.
On the merits, the Court applied the general principles on the right to a “tribunal established by law” set out in Guðmundur Andri Ástráðsson v. Iceland [GC] (no. 26374/18, 1 December 2020) and relied directly on its earlier finding in Besnik Cani v. Albania (no. 37474/20, 4 October 2022), which had already established that L.D.’s appointment to the SAC — despite his prior dismissal from judicial office — constituted an arguable manifest breach of a fundamental rule of domestic law. In Cani, the Court had concluded that national courts failed to properly address the Convention questions raised, and it found no fact or argument in the present case to justify a different conclusion.
Having found a violation on the basis of L.D.’s earlier dismissal from office affecting his SAC appointment, the Court declined to examine the separate question of whether L.D. also failed to meet the 15-year experience requirement, considering that issue subsumed within the broader violation already established. On just satisfaction, the Court rejected Kadana’s pecuniary damages claim — amounting to approximately 20.2 million Albanian lek in lost salary — finding no causal link between the procedural violation and any financial loss, since it could not speculate on what outcome conforming proceedings would have reached. The Court held that the finding of a violation itself constituted sufficient just satisfaction for non-pecuniary damage, while noting that reopening of the vetting proceedings would be appropriate should the applicant so request.
Key Takeaways
- A SAC bench including a judge whose own appointment manifestly violated statutory eligibility criteria does not constitute a “tribunal established by law” under Article 6 § 1, even if that judge’s disqualification was formally raised and rejected during the proceedings.
- An applicant who raises an ineligibility challenge through the designated domestic recusal mechanism (here, section 27 of the Vetting Act) sufficiently exhausts domestic remedies; a further post-judgment review procedure is not required where the core Convention argument was squarely put before the tribunal.
- Where a procedural Article 6 violation is found without any assessment of the underlying merits of dismissal, the Court will not award pecuniary damages for lost salary absent a demonstrated causal link between the violation and the financial harm alleged.
- The finding of a violation itself may constitute adequate just satisfaction for non-pecuniary damage in vetting cases; the Court indicated that reopening the proceedings — once the institutional framework permits — is the appropriate remedy.
Why It Matters
This judgment reinforces the precedent established in Besnik Cani v. Albania and confirms that Albania’s SAC-based vetting process was systemically compromised by L.D.’s unlawful appointment. For attorneys advising clients subject to Albanian vetting decisions in which L.D. participated, the ruling signals a viable pathway to challenge those outcomes under Article 6 and potentially seek reopening of proceedings.
More broadly, the case illustrates how the “tribunal established by law” guarantee operates as a structural safeguard within extraordinary justice-reform mechanisms: states undertaking wholesale judicial vetting cannot immunize flawed appointments from Convention scrutiny simply by embedding a recusal procedure that itself lacks jurisdiction to remedy the underlying eligibility defect. Courts and legislatures designing similar transitional justice bodies elsewhere should take note that every member of such tribunals must independently satisfy applicable eligibility requirements or risk invalidating the proceedings they conduct.