The Precedent and Unifying Practice of the Supreme Court in Albania, a Distinguishing and Harmonizing Element between Civil Law and Common Law

Abstract

The precedent in the legal system in Albania is closely related to the judicial hierarchy. Although Albania is part of the Civil Law system, the unifying practice has a determining role in the interpretation of legal provisions, as well as the unification of the judicial practices of the lower courts, which during the judicial disposition and the analysis of the facts, take different positions and not unified, creating confusion.The notion of legal systems is a complex notion, which includes in itself the historical origin, the legal method, the nature of the treatment of sources of law, as well as ideological factors.

The purpose of this paper is precisely to deal with the role of precedent in Albanian judicial practice, as well as the interpretation of legal provisions, dealing with the comparative elements between the two legal systems.

Based on the qualitative analysis of the literature, the law and the unifying practice of the Supreme Court, referring to the role of precedent in Albania, as a country with a tradition of the Civil Law system, the research questions are posed:

- If the continental system and that of English law go on different paths, and there are no meeting points between them, taking into account the bindingness or not of the Unifying Decisions of the Supreme Court for the treatment of similar cases or for the interpretation of legal provisions?

- Are the Unifying Decisions of the Supreme Court, which have disposed differently from the legal provisions, considered contrary to the law?

-If the historical and economic development of different countries, as well as the development of contractual relations between them, has it brought about an intertwining of the common law system and the continental one, for the development of the justice system, and the most practical solution of various judicial issues?