The diminishment of civil and political rights during the Covid-19 pandemic. A 'paved road' for speculative schemes on city public realm. Case study Tirana.

There is a direct discoverable linkage, between the diminishing of civic and political rights, and the dilatation destruction of the public realm by city rebuilding and redevelopment. On March 2020, with the Covid-19 outbreak aligned with the pandemic restrictions that entered in power, organized forms of protest and any civic actions were prohibited by law. During this period of time the city increased its density by developing hundreds of new construction sites, most of which at the outlay of public realm. Public space, in absence of citizen’s presence turned into a ‘facility’ for the construction industry, while the city resembles to a giant construction site. Decision-making on city planning by public institutions is accompanied with lack of transparency, by impinging also the right to information. This paper aims to expose the connection between arbitrary decision-making on the city and the violation of the right to information and the right to spaces of representations.