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CONCLUSION
Despite significant improvements over the last decade, violations of media freedom continue to occur in Albania. Particularly serious are the acts of violence and intimidation against journalists of various affiliations. Often perpetrated or instigated by law enforcement officers and government officials unaccustomed to or intolerant of democratic openness and accountability, such attacks are a chilling and unfortunate reminder of Albania's recent totalitarian past. The government should take determined and sustained action to overcome that legacy of disrespect for freedom of expression and other fundamental rights. Most urgently, the Albanian government should end police impunity; the authorities should conduct prompt and impartial investigations into all allegations of police abuse against the press and others, without requiring victims to file official complaints. The public prosecutorial system, headed by the general prosecutor, must make the investigation of serious human rights violations by law enforcement personnel a permanent priority. Judicial convictions for defamation that contravene international human rights law constitute a growing threat to media freedom and public debate in Albania. Criminal and civil defamation actions have become the Albanian politicians' favorite device for curbing criticism and investigative reporting. Unfortunately, the Albanian courts routinely side with the powerful, imposing increasingly higher fines against media professionals and abdicating their constitutional prerogatives to uphold the fundamental rights of all. Principled legislative action and judicial courage is required to reverse this trend, including the deletion of defamation offences from the Criminal Code and a thorough reform of civil defamation laws. It will be a greater challenge to make Albanian courts take fundamental rights seriously. This will require extensive human rights training-to start, the key parts of European and international human rights jurisprudence should be made available in Albanian for judges and legal professionals at all levels. It will also require greater oversight of the judiciary's human rights performance, most preferably by the higher courts (the Constitutional Court and High Court), the academia, and the civil society. The international community has an important role to play, as well, by holding Albania to fundamental human rights standards, including those on freedom of expression. The European Union, in particular, should live up to its commitment to "mainstream" human rights issues into its special relationship with Albania (the stabilization and association process).202 The Council of Europe should assist Albania to close the gap of non-compliance with its commitments under the European Convention on Human Rights, and to train its judges in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The OSCE, with its special commitment to free expression, election expertise, and field presence throughout Albania, is in the best position to monitor violations of media freedom in a timely and systematic fashion. Investigations into media harassment must become a priority for election monitoring missions. The same applies to subtler-and hence less obvious-forms of interference with media freedom and independence, such as financial pressures applied by the government through various "creative" channels (politically motivated misallocation of state advertising, selective subsidies, and the like). Last, but not least, the international community should do more to assist the development of an objective, ethical and, professional press in Albania, able to resist undue pressures from private and government interests alike.
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