Q & A with Alma Bela

Your current occupation and country of work?
I work at Academy of Sciences of Albania (HR specialist and Jurist). I have obtained a Law degree and MSc. degree in Criminal Law from Faculty of Law, University of Tirana. At 2014 I’ve finished the National School of Advocacy. Currently I am a PhD student working on my PhD thesis (with the topic regarding legal criminal protection of data) and I work as a part-time lecturer at the Criminal Law Department at the same faculty.

How you use European law in your work?
Amongst general duties related to human resources and those of the legal field, I am also a coordinator on the right to information for the institution. My day-to-day duties include also drafting various proposals for improvement of the legal framework at the Academy and following the sufficiency of the legislation in force. Albania was granted EU candidate status in June 2014. Since then, every legal act, every Council of Minister’s Decree etc., before coming into force, should fulfill also these criteria: harmonization with national legislations and international one and assessment of the degree of approach to acquis Communautaire (for normative projects).

How you benefitted from the scholarship and the gained knowledge?
Participating in this event helped me to see in a different point of view, how to cope with the latest changes in nowadays society. Due to the fact that European institutions have tremendous experience in this field, I do believe that I gained excellent experience and came up with new ideas how we can give suggestions for improving some acts in our legislation. Currently I am working on “Personal Data Protection Regulation” for the institution of the Academy of Sciences, which is a meaningful task to accomplish.