Equality of Arms, Albanian Case and the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

One of the main principles of a fair judicial process is the equality of arms, an elaborated principle from the Albanian Constitutional Court Jurisprudence in full harmony with the definitions made in the European Court of Human Rights. This principle implies that anyone that is a party in the judicial process must have equal possibility to introduce its issues, and that no party must satisfy any considerable advantage against the opponent, establishing therefore a fair equilibrium between these parties. This principle finds regulation from a series of judicial norms, which are sanctioned in the Albanian Constitution as well as in the way the Penal Procedure Code sounds like. In this code, we find the sanctions of the principle for an accusing process, based on the contradiction of the penal law, providing procedural means which are equal for both parties in the trial.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3p181