The case of Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj is addressed in the fourth monitoring report on the implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government in Albania, prepared by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

Citing assessments by the Venice Commission, the report’s authors note that “the prolonged pre-trial detention of mayors requires special attention.” According to them, such a situation “could call into question both the individual rights of mayors under the European Convention on Human Rights and the rights of the voters who elected them.”

The report provides a detailed account of developments ranging from Veliaj’s arrest to efforts to remove him from office and the Constitutional Court’s reaffirmation of his position as Mayor of Tirana. However, it specifies that “in practice, Mr Veliaj is unable to exercise his duties as mayor, as he remains in pre-trial detention.” The report also cites another Constitutional Court ruling regarding the detention measure imposed on Veliaj, which “remanded the case to the Supreme Court for review, finding that its previous decision on pre-trial detention lacked sufficient reasoning regarding the proportionality of the detention measure.”

The section of the report dedicated to Mayor Veliaj reads:

“Judicial protection of local self-government rights plays an important role in Albania. According to one source, a total of 36 mayors—either incumbent or former—have been investigated on corruption charges in recent years.[47] In February 2025, the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) arrested the Mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj, on corruption charges; he has remained in pre-trial detention since then.

In September 2025, the Tirana City Council voted to dismiss the mayor from office due to his absence from work for more than three months. Consequently, the government issued a dismissal decree, and a presidential decree scheduled early elections in Tirana. However, in November 2025, the Constitutional Court of Albania reinstated Erion Veliaj as mayor, deeming his dismissal unconstitutional and annulling the snap elections in the capital. In practice, Mr Veliaj is unable to perform his mayoral duties, as he remains in pre-trial detention.

The rapporteurs consider commenting on ongoing criminal proceedings to be outside the scope of this report. As a general observation, they wish only to highlight that Albania ranks among the countries with the highest rates of pre-trial detention in Europe, as well as a relatively long average duration of such detention. The Venice Commission report on the impact of the detention of mayors on the exercise of democratic local governance emphasised that the prolonged detention of mayors requires special attention, as it may call into question both the mayors’ individual rights under the ECHR and the rights of the voters who elected them.

In May 2026, the Constitutional Court of Albania partially upheld the appeal filed by the Mayor of Tirana against his pre-trial detention and remanded the case to the Supreme Court for review, finding that its previous decision regarding the detention order was not sufficiently justified with regard to the proportionality of the measure. On September 15, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld the detention order.”

The document was submitted to the Congress on October 7 and is expected to be approved on October 27.