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The authority and the opening of the files
Although not everyone knows it, the Authority for Information on the Former State Security Files (AIDSSH) has been operating for a little over a year. Established under Law 45/2015, it has been tasked with guiding a delicate process for Albanians, one that countries such as Germany (1990) and Romania (1999) began years ago.
This means opening the documents of the dictatorship’s secret service, the State Security, or Sigurimi.
Anyone can apply to the authority, through a form, for access to information held by the former Sigurimi, but not about just anyone. You must have a connection to, or consent from, the person or their family. As for politicians, you cannot request access at all.
The opening of more than 200 thousand Sigurimi files in Albania comes more than 20 years after the parliamentary commissions of ’95–’97, generally known by the surnames of their chairmen, Hajri Mezini and Nazif Bezhani. These were the only bodies that had the legal power to administer the documents and even certify individuals standing for public office, guaranteeing their so-called clean background.
The opening of the files has been obstructed by the politics of the day and the endless transition. The “files” have been used, publicly and privately, for blackmail and to stir up public controversy. This has fostered a prejudiced stereotype about any process intended to examine and confront Albania’s dictatorial past.
The Files Authority must therefore prepare for intense pressure.
On the other hand, there is a general perception that the important files, those concerning officials who were collaborators or former spies, will never be opened, or, worse still, can no longer be found. This leaves public expectations of the authority’s work low.
The Sigurimi files are the key to accelerating the transition. But they remain an inexhaustible public debate as long as politicians enjoy immunity from their opening.
Albanians have heard plenty of MPs address one another in Parliament by State Security code names. But it seems this language of politicians “with code names” will take even longer to be clarified in concrete terms, because the current “Files” law does not allow broad “opening” for officials too.
The debate over vetting officials
Why and how this is so was discussed at length during the two-day workshop, 21–22 September, on “Reporting on the Sigurimi files”, organised by the Institute for Democracy, Media and Culture (IDMC). In cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the OSCE and the authority, this was probably the first concrete examination of the work done so far and of what is, in my view, an incomplete law.
The authority’s first year of activity coincided with an election year. Voters elected the ninth legislature of the Republic of Albania. A few days before the June elections, the authority’s chair, Gentiana Sula, together with the chair of the Central Election Commission, Denar Biba, called on political parties to check their candidates’ backgrounds in relation to the past.
But because no law obliged them to participate in this process, unlike the decriminalisation checks, only 2 of the 18 parties contesting the election ultimately applied.
In the new Parliament, the appointment as Speaker of the last interior minister of the communist period stirred up further debate. A document resurfaced in the media bearing his name on an instruction to the “Interior Branches” dated the day 4 protesters were killed in Shkodër (2 April 1991). This once again drew attention to the backgrounds of the country’s leading political figures. 
But everything continues “normally”, without problems.
Meanwhile, according to a 2015 survey by the Institute for Development Research and Alternatives in cooperation with the OSCE, 73 per cent of Albanians believe that many current politicians held important positions under the previous regime. 80 per cent support drafting and implementing a lustration law to remove them from office.
So the public’s perception remains that of the beginnings of “Democracy”. The authority says that around 600 officials have undergone “background clearance”, but citizens’ expectations do not appear to have been met.
Foreign experiences and the limits of Albanian law
Germany, according to Dagmar Hovestädt, spokesperson for the authority responsible for declassifying the STASI files, chose a relatively permissive approach after reunification. In general, the decision was to subject public figures to an open social dialogue without preventing them from standing for various offices.
Romania, according to Dr Germina Nagat, head of the Investigation Department at the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, has changed its approach several times, socially and legally, arriving at court-imposed penalties that bar people for life from standing for public office if they are proven to have committed crimes or collaborated with surveillance structures during the dictatorial past.
Albania, for its part, has no clear approach in this regard, because, inexplicably, leading politicians have been granted “immunity”.
Article 29 of Law 45/2015 mentions “requests for information concerning officials before appointment or promotion”, but permits them only from “constitutional institutions”, not individuals, researchers, media or nongovernmental organisations.
In other words, no one can request information about a current official such as the Speaker of Parliament. On top of this, paragraph 4 of the article says that the authority does not process any request concerning officials who hold a “background clearance certificate” obtained from the Mezini and Bezhani commissions.
The “certificates” that politicians secured for themselves in the mid-’90s are made entirely unquestionable by this law. Indeed, they harden into indisputable immunity.
This incapacity, this tying of the authority’s hands, explains why the principal topic of discussion in this first year of “opening the files” has largely been the rehabilitation of persecuted intellectuals, rather than establishing and condemning the crimes of communism.
The expected debate is missing, society seems drowsy, and during the workshop the authority repeatedly stressed that very few journalists come to its offices.
Faced with this situation, diligent work by the media and citizens is needed to keep debate about the past alive and under pressure. By bringing as many events as possible to light, they can force a future legal change that would also allow politicians to be “vetted”.
At the close of the workshop, Dr Jonila Godole, IDMC’s executive director, asked the authority to be as available as possible and provide journalists with all the assistance they need, so that reporting on the files would become more extensive in future.
A summary of discussions during the “Reporting on the Sigurimi” workshop, organised by IDMC, the Institute for Democracy, Media and Culture; AIDSSH, the Authority for Information on Former State Security Documents; OSCE Presence in Albania; Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Albanien; and international experts from the BStU Stasi Records Archive (Germany) and the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (Romania).
* This article was reviewed and corrected on 8 October 2026.