The courts are not a party to the protest

The National Association of Judges did something rare on Tuesday: in the same statement, it condemned both the protesters and the prime minister. On one side, the fire inside the Supreme Court and the damage to case files. On the other, Edi Rama's public language toward judges who are reviewing security measures for arrested protesters.

Both concerns are valid. A case file burned at the Supreme Court is not a protest against the government; it is harm done to a citizen who has waited years for a ruling in his or her case. Those who attack the courts are not striking at power; they are striking at the institution the protesters themselves will need to turn to tomorrow for their own defense.

But neither can the head of the executive tell judges that they have been too lenient. When a court releases someone with an obligation to report to police, it weighs the evidence and the proportionality of the measure, not the temperature of the street. If prosecutors cannot convince a judge, that is a matter for the prosecution, not for speeches from the Prime Minister's Office.

Over the past week, Tirana's courts have reviewed dozens of requests concerning protesters, released most of them with an obligation to report and in several cases declared arrests unlawful. That is exactly their job: to stop violence, and also to stop the state from overstepping in response to it.

The justice reform cost many years and a great deal of money precisely so that courts would not depend on the mood of politics. In such a tense week, the best thing everyone can do, from the square to the Prime Minister's Office, is to let the judges judge.