ls are the constitutional agencies on the local level.
Elected for three-year terms to administer districts, cities, and
villages, they are responsible to their constituencies as well as to the
higher organs of state power. According to the Constitution, the
councils are charged with economic and cultural matters and direct the
affairs of the administrative organs within their jurisdictions.
Councils are responsible for maintaining public order, for implementing
laws, and for drawing up local budgets. The Constitution also requires
that the councils call periodic meetings of their constituents to keep
the people informed on council activities.

Each council chooses an executive committee from among its membership,
and it is through this committee that the actual work of local
government is accomplished. Other committees or departments may be
established at the discretion of the executive committee for the
performance of specific tasks or for the supervision of a particular
enterprise. In performing such functions, the special committees and
departments are constitutionally responsible to the people's councils
and to corresponding sections at higher levels of the bureaucracy. The
people's councils are elected from lists of the local organizations of
the Albanian Workers' Party.

COURT SYSTEM

The people's court system consists of the Supreme Court and courts at
each of the territorial subdivisions. Other types of courts may be
created by law. The Constitution provides that the people's courts are
independent of the administration. A law on the organization of the
courts passed in 1968, however, specified that the "people's courts will
be guided in their activities by the policy of the Party. In carrying
out their responsibilities, they must strongly rely on the working
masses and submit to their criticism and control."

Decisions are made collegially. In cases where the Supreme Court and
district courts have original jurisdiction--that is, when a case is to
be first heard by them--assistant judges participate in the ruling,
unless the case is such that the law specifically states otherwise.
People's courts at the village and city levels decide cases with the
participation of an assistant judge from the district court and two
so-called social activists, who are actually local Party members. If a
case is before the Supreme Court by appeal, three judges make the
verdict; when a case is before a district court by appea