1The following terms in this Law shall have the following meanings:

a“non-contentious cases’ means for the purpose of the ethical and professional performance evaluation any case registered with the court, lodged in the format of a request, the latter seeking the resolution of a case without prejudice. These cases include civil cases and administrative non-contentious cases, as well as administrative-criminal cases and security measures;

b‘legal documents’ for the purpose of the assessment of the professional skills means any document prepared by the person in the course of the exercise of the professional duty, like court decisions, indictments, reports, lawsuits, legal opinion and other acts, that prove the person’s professional capacities;

c“days” are calendar days, except time periods under 10 days which are calculated in working days;

ç‘Falling short of assuming political offices in the public administration’ means not having been a member of parliament, Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, minister, deputy minister or officials, members of the cabinet of the President of the Republic, Speaker of the Assembly, Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister or minister, holding the position of the director of Cabinet, advisor, assistant, speaker or personal secretary to the head of the cabinet,

dA ‘reporting judge” means a judge having been assigned by lot the capacity of the rapporteur of the panel in the trial of the judicial case;

dh”graduate” means a person who is included in the graduates’ list of the School of Magistrates but has not yet been appointed as a magistrate;

e“appointee” means a person who has graduated from the School of Magistrates and has been appointed as a magistrate by the Council or is a former judge or prosecutor and has been re-appointed by the Council, but has not yet been assigned to a position;

ë"“Councils” means- i) the High Judicial Council, being the body dealing with the cases relating to judges, appointees, graduates and candidate magistrates attending the School of Magistrates with the intention to become judges; ii) the High Prosecutorial Council, being the body dealing with the cases relating to prosecutors, appointees, graduates and candidate magistrates attending the School of Magistrates with the intention to become prosecutors; "

f"Average adjudication time" shall be the average indicator of the time for the reasoning of all the judicial decisions rendered by the judge within the evaluation period, being calculated since the date of rendering the decision until the date of depositing the decision with the secretarial office.

g“chairperson” means a chairperson of a court or a prosecution office, including the chairperson of the High Court, the Prosecutor General and the Head of the Special Prosecution Office;

gj“magistrates” are judges, except judges at the Constitutional Court, prosecutors and chairpersons in the sense of letter (g) of this Article;

h“assistant magistrate” means a judge seconded to assist judges at the High Court or the Constitutional Court, as well as prosecutors seconded to assist the Prosecutor General, in the processing of cases. For this purpose, their activity includes in particular conducting legal research and preparing written opinions on substantive or procedural legal issues;

i"‘a change in the administrative structure or territorial powers of the court or prosecution office’ means: - a change of the judicial districts and the territorial competences as foreseen in the law “On the organization of the judicial power in the Republic of Albania”, upon a Decision of the Council of Ministers; - a change in the number of magistrates per court or prosecution office upon a decision of the Councils, building on a long term assessment of the needs; "

j“initial gross salary” in the sense of this law shall represent the main reference salary and group salary bonus;

k‘Evaluation period” means the time period, during which the ethical and professional evaluation of the magistrate is made;

lThe ‘clearance rate’ for a magistrate is the ratio of number of cases completed by him to the number of cases assigned to him/her within a calendar year;

ll‘Evaluation scheme’ refers to the set of rules of the ethical and professional evaluation as set out by this Law and the respective bylaw acts issued based thereon and for its implementation;

m‘Minimum time standards’ is an orientation timeline, within which a case should be completed. The Councils shall adopt and review the minimum standards for time periods separately for different types of cases by taking into account the nature, the complexity and the number of the cases registered with a court or prosecution office, as well as the court or prosecution office infrastructure.

nA ‘procedural decision” means a decision which does not resolve the case with prejudice, such as a decision dismissing an application or the decision on the completion or closure of proceedings on formal grounds.

nj’extra-office activity’ means a remunerated or non-remunerated activity which is not the judges’ or prosecutors’ activity or administrative activity to be carried out by magistrates as provided by law or as mandated by a competent person or institution;

o‘evaluator’ is, for the purpose of the ethical and professional evaluation procedure, any person involved in the preparation and decision-making;

pThe wording “has not held leadership positions in a political party” means that he/she has not been member of the management bodies foreseen in the Articles of Association of the political party.