“INDEPENDENT AND UNBIASED JUDICIARY”
The first working session of the Working Group (WG) 3 – Judiciary and Fundamental Rights of the National Convention on the European Union in the Republic of Macedonia NCEUE-MK, realized by the European Movement in the Republic of Macedonia EDRM and supported by USAID, as well as by the Association for Foreign Policy of Slovakia SFFA, was held on March the 1st 2018 in the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia. The working session titled Independent and impartial judiciary: systemic and moral dilemmas was attended by senior state officials, experts in the field of judiciary (judges, public prosecutors), members of professional associations from this domain, academics, representatives of civil society and other prominent guests. The participants were welcomed by the President of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, Mr. Talat Xhaferi, Professor Mileva Gjurovska, EDRM President and National Coordinator of the Convention, as well as Alexandar Duleba, SFFA director.
In the welcoming speech the President of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, Talat Xhaferi expressed respect and support for the European Movement in the Republic of Macedonia which is carrying out this project in Macedonia, and expressed his hopes that the National Convention on the EU in the RM will help mobilize the expert public in discussing society’s most important topics.
Professor Gjurovska reminded that the National Convention represents an open platform for dialogue of the important actors of our society for the integration processes and invited them to be part of this process. The idea to implement this model in the Republic of Macedonia came from the EDRM, following the experiences of other countries that implemented the National Convention. She spoke about the importance of the chapter 23 as the rule of law is the foundation for the implementation of all the other negotiation chapters.
DEFINING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS FOR THE JUDICIARY
Presenting his country’s experiences on its road towards the EU, the director of the Association for Foreign Policy of Slovakia, Alexander Duleba, pointed out that a national consent on European membership should be reached and that this process should remain open to all citizens, to the civil society organizations and all the other stakeholders. He explained that the structure of the National Convention resembles the structure of the EU which is very complex and that helps he citizens to better understand what the EU actually is and how it functions – what is a topic of interest for the farmers, what important for the businessmen, teachers and so on. There will be results, said Duleba, only if the government successfully will build a partnership with the citizens and the civil sector.
In the working part of the conference, according to the methodology of the NCEU-MK, started with the presentations of the analyses made by the WG-3 experts related to the main topic of the debate. Dr Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska, a former judge at the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, talked about the topic: The practice of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the court cases of the Republic of Macedonia, Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska, in her expose, said that as far as the rule of law in an EU aspiring country is concerned, the road that leads to Brussels goes through Strassbourg. The practice of the European Court of Human Rights has to be worked out, because there is no case and aspect that the national courts that have not passed through the court of the European Court of Human Rights face. The independence and impartiality of the judiciary as preconditions for the rule of law will be the first lesson in Chapter 23, “In the context of this, he added that the EU Strategy for the Western Balkans from 2018 to 2025 begins with the rule of law.
PROFESSIONAL AND QUALITY DEBATE
Aleksandar Jovanoski from the European Policies Institute EPI in Skopje stated in his presentation that EPI proposed amendments to two key laws in the field of justice – the Law on Courts and the Law on Judicial Council, in the chapters that are dealing with disciplinary responsibility and the introduction of qualitative assessments of judges in in line with the changes proposed by the Government, but there is a need for their further explication. According to him, the national conventions in the other countries where this model was applied were actively involved in the preparation of the action plans for the reforms in the area covered by Chapter 23, and the NGO sector was actively involved in the activities and the state institutions were in constant contact with them.
After their speeches, a discussion followed with Muhamed Halili (EDRM) and Frosina Taseva (Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Macedonia) acting as co-chairmen of WG-3. The representatives of the judiciary as well as representatives of the Ministry of Justice and professional associations and the university professors discussed several important issues regarding the functioning of the courts, the procedures for the appointment and the promotion of judges, the selection criteria for members of the Republican Judicial Council and other issues that are connected to the reforms in the judicial system, announced by the new Government. It was decided that a more narrow working group would meet in order to precisely formulate the recommendations arising from the debate at this first session of the Working Group 3 – Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, in order to implement them in the future law amendments relating to the judicial system.