The restitution of property in Albania, a continuing problem after 25 years of democracy

The restitution of private property to the former owner after 1990’s turned to be a real problem not only for the prior owners, but also for the Albanian governments after the communist regime. As a result of the mistakes done from the institutions and the discrepancies of Law No. 7501 date 17.07.1991 “For the Land“ and Law No. 7698 date 15.04.1993 “For the restitution of property to the former owners“ this problem is still not resolved definitely. After 25 years of democracy this problem should be solved as in other ex communist countries. The long line of cases in the Albanian courts and Court of the Human Rights in Strasburg show that this problem needs to be resolved very fast, because of the economic damage that has caused to the Albanian state budget. This paper aims to highlight the problems with the property restitution, especially the cases in the Court of Human Rights and to make a clear picture of the problem and also to show the measures that the Albanian state has taken to solve this problem