Are electronic signatures legal in Albania?
Albania has always been looking for ways to make electronic signatures legal. Since 2014 they have approved the eIDAS regulations, hereby making their electronic signatures legal to European standards
Yes, e-signatures are court admissible
Each country has it’s own regulations that determine whether an electronic signature is seen as legal or not. So, as long as your electronic signature adheres to these, a signature won’t be rejected simply for not being handwritten.
Yes, e-signatures can be used in business
Whilst 100% legal; there are exceptions for very specific types of transactions. It is still up to the discretion of the independent user, or governing body, whether they are used or not. As each business needs are different and the agreements themselves may vary. We always advise you to speak with an authority within your businesses category.
Legal Model
After the 2016 legal reform, Albania’s’ legal model is a tiered one. This means that Qualified Electronic Signatures are seen as a legal type of e-signature. This doesn’t mean that a non-QES e-Signature can’t be submitted in court, but it will need extra evidence to support it.
Legal Classification
Albania operates under Civil Law systems which are arranged according to a plan or a system and come from Roman law. Civil law systems are based on:
- Generally a written constitution based on specific codes (e.g. civil code, codes covering corporate law, administrative law, tax law and constitutional law) preserving basic rights and duties
- There is little scope for judge-made law in civil, criminal and commercial courts (only legislative enactments are considered binding for all)
- In some civil law systems, e.g. Germany, writings of legal scholars have significant influence on the courts
- Courts specific to the underlying codes – there are therefore usually separate constitutional court, administrative court and civil court systems that opine on consistency of legislation and administrative acts with and interpret that specific code;
- Less freedom of contract – many provisions are implied into a contract by law and parties cannot contract out of certain provisions.
A civil law system is generally more prescriptive
Full Summary
There have been attempts since 1997 to make electronic signatures legal in Albania. There have been a number of laws approved in this field (like the Law no. 9880, of 25.2.2008 “On Electronic Signatures” and the Law no 107/2015 “For Electronic Identification and Trust Services”) and in 2009 the National Authority for Electronic Certification was established.
In June 2014, the eIDAS regulations were approved, which is the standard most European countries hold today.