(CN) - A teenage theft that ended with the money returned and a suspended sentence dogged one aspiring prosecutor for nearly two decades - all the way to Strasbourg, France, where Europe's rights court ruled Tuesday that Albania overstepped in blocking the man's bid for magistrate training because of a conviction he received at 15.

The applicant said Albania had punished him twice for a childhood mistake and blocked his path to becoming a prosecutor.

The European Court of Human Rights agreed, finding Albania violated the man's right to private life after authorities refused to admit him to the country's School of Magistrates even though the conviction had been legally extinguished years earlier.

"The absolute and permanent ban on his admission to the School of Magistrates, and consequently on pursuing a career as a prosecutor at an early stage of his professional development, had a clear and serious impact on his personal choice as to the way he wished to pursue his professional and private life, shape his social identity and develop relationships with others," the court wrote.

While governments may impose strict integrity standards on prosecutors, the judges said Albanian authorities applied that rule too rigidly, focusing almost entirely on the conviction instead of examining the broader circumstances of the offense and the applicant's life since.

"By limiting their assessment in this way, the domestic courts did not undertake a thorough and individualized analysis of the circumstances relevant to the ban," the court said.

Shiqiri Manjani, the applicant, was born in 1991. His trouble with the law dated back to 2006, when he was 15, during a visit to inspect land his father planned to sell. Left waiting in a potential buyer's car while the adults walked the property, he opened the glove compartment, found a bundle of cash and hid it nearby. Police quickly recovered the money after he admitted taking it.

A district court convicted him of theft and handed down an eight-month prison sentence but suspended the punishment, noting the money had been returned and that the teenager posed little danger to society. Years later, under Albanian law, the conviction was formally wiped from his record through rehabilitation.

Manjani went on to study law, work as a private lawyer and later serve as a judicial police officer assisting a prosecutor's office. In February 2020, he applied to the School of Magistrates, a three-year program that trains future judges and prosecutors, passed the entrance exam and disclosed the old conviction during background checks.

But the door to the profession closed anyway. Albania's High Prosecutorial Council rejected his application, ruling the conviction - even though committed as a minor and later erased - meant he failed to meet the legal requirement that candidates must not have been convicted by a final criminal judgment. Albania's Supreme Court upheld the decision, saying the rule protects the integrity of prosecutors and public trust in the justice system.

Manjani eventually brought the dispute to Europe's human rights court after Albania's top courts upheld the ruling.

The judges in Strasbourg agreed that prosecutors are expected to meet high ethical standards and that governments may set rules to protect public confidence in the justice system. But they said the Albanian courts failed to properly examine key factors that normally matter in cases involving juvenile offenses, including the applicant's age at the time, the nonviolent nature of the theft, the immediate return of the money and his law-abiding conduct in the years since - making the ban unjustified.

Christopher Slobogin, director of the Criminal Justice Program and professor of law and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, said the ruling reflects widely accepted principles.

"Generally, an expunged record cannot be used in later criminal proceedings or to bar employment," he said, adding that such rules do not undermine either punishment or rehabilitation if a person has served their time and changed their ways. While some governments may worry a past conviction could affect a prosecutor's credibility, Slobogin said that "on the facts of this case, that seems unlikely."

For criminal justice advocates, the case also raises a broader question about what rehabilitation is meant to achieve. 

Paula Harriott, chief executive of advocacy group Unlock, said, "When a conviction has been formally spent under the law, the clear intention is that the individual should be able to move forward without that offense continuing to define their future."

Harriott said cases like this show how the "long shadow" of criminal records can persist even after rehabilitation, warning that when old convictions still block access to careers or training, "it risks turning rehabilitation into a promise that exists in law but not in practice." 

She added that the applicant's age made the case particularly striking: "Childhood and adolescent mistakes should not become lifelong barriers to professional opportunity."

Albania's government and the applicant's lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Judges rejected Manjani's claim for lost earnings tied to a potential judicial career but awarded him 4,500 euros (about $5,200) in compensation for nonpecuniary harm.

The decision may also reopen the door to his legal career. Albanian law allows domestic proceedings to be revisited after an ECHR judgment, meaning he could seek a fresh review of the decision that barred him from the magistrate program. 

The ruling is not yet final: Both sides have three months to ask for a referral to the court's Grand Chamber. If no request is made, or if it is rejected, Albania must pay the damages and bring its practices into line with the judgment.

Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.

Source: Courthouse News Service