1 I can’t believe that in the entire country we can’t find just one more legal expert, just one who meets the criteria for appointment as a judge of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This is the second time the Council of Europe panel has sent the candidates proposed by the Macedonian commission back at the very first filter, the screening of their CVs. Two candidates have already been accepted, a third is still needed. That’s the procedure. The state nominates three candidates, all three are then interviewed by a committee of the Parliamentary Assembly made up of top legal experts, and finally the judge has to be elected by the members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The commission that selects the candidates back home is headed by the President of the Constitutional Court and also includes the President of the Supreme Court, the President of the country’s largest criminal court, the Criminal Court in Skopje, the President of the Civil Court in Skopje and the Director of the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors. The best of the best, the crème de la crème of the Macedonian judiciary.
Strasbourg wouldn’t reject the candidates if they met the basic criteria: being judges at a Constitutional or Supreme Court, having international judicial experience in the field of human rights, or being distinguished professors with scholarly work in areas covered by the European Convention on Human Rights… And, naturally, they need to have an excellent command of foreign languages, because they’ll actually be questioned in those languages there, they won’t just be presenting their certificates.
What does it say about the Macedonian commission that the Council of Europe has twice sent back its proposed candidates as unsuitable? How does a commission made up of the most capable people at the top of a country’s judiciary allow itself to send candidates to Strasbourg knowing in advance that they’ll be rejected? Or would they rather have people in Strasbourg wondering what on earth they were thinking than have the ruling party angry with them back in Skopje? After all, nobody in the party values your expertise anyway.
Either we genuinely don’t have capable judges and legal experts, or those who are capable are discouraged from applying because they don’t trust the candidate selection process.
Well, I refuse to believe we’re ignorant and incompetent to such an extent.
Apparently, finding someone at the very top of Macedonia’s legal profession who can meet European criteria rather than Macedonian ones has become quite the intellectual challenge.
And that’s why we are where we are. Not just in the judiciary. In education too. And healthcare. And culture. And business. Suffocated by party criteria.
2 Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski says he would be happiest if the United States tightened the requirements for issuing immigrant visas to Macedonian citizens.
“If the Americans could tighten the requirements for immigrant visas for Macedonian citizens, I’d be the happiest, because this Government’s policy is to bring emigrants back. If we’re talking about tourist visas, that’s different, but if immigrant visas could be tightened, I’d be the happiest,” Mickoski said after visiting the Hydrometeorological Service.
What’s next? As if it weren’t enough that EU countries gave us a proper hard time at their borders this summer, now Mickoski can start lobbying in Brussels for the return of Schengen visas too.
And why doesn’t he simply stop people leaving the country with more effective measures that history has shown to work? They could pass a law banning people from leaving the country altogether. All right, perhaps it doesn’t have to be that strict, Mickoski is, after all, the leader of a democratic party. They could do what they did in Romania under Nicolae Ceaușescu or Bulgaria under Todor Zhivkov, forbid entire families from leaving the country at the same time, making someone stay behind as a guarantee that the others will come back.
Mickoski is awfully strict when it comes to people emigrating from this country, considering that he’s a prime minister half of whose cabinet hold Bulgarian passports and the leader of a party half of whose members hold Bulgarian passports.
3 I’m concerned that there’s no unity within the governing coalition when it comes to emigration. This became apparent at the ceremony marking the laying of the foundation stone for the motorway to Kosovo. VLEN cheerfully concluded: All roads lead to Blace!
4 Prime Minister Mickoski has announced an increase in September’s pensions, except this time it won’t be a linear increase, but one made in accordance with the law. “It will be a regular equalisation, an adjustment in accordance with the law,” Mickoski said. He explained that certain individuals, encouraged by political parties, had initiated proceedings before the Constitutional Court against the linear increase, so this was his way of protecting pensions and pensioners.
It was for the very same reason – to protect pensions and pensioners – that Mickoski used to increase pensions by a flat rate, and it’s for the very same reason that he’ll now increase them according to the statutory procedure.
I wonder where those 20 pensioners from Sveti Nikole are now, the ones who blocked roads three years ago demanding linear pension increases? Or the pensioners from Shtip who were freezing in winter and boiling in the summer sun, demanding linear increases instead of the regular statutory adjustment? To think that in November 2023 they even gathered to protest outside the US Embassy. Which embassy will they protest outside now that the Government is within Trump’s perimeter?
I’ve always wondered how the party brain works. The party brain is a strange biological phenomenon. Until yesterday, the linear increase was an excellent solution, from tomorrow, the statutory one will be brilliant. No matter how much the leaders’ statements scramble the brains of the party lackeys and send them off in all sorts of directions, one direction is certain. The party’s direction.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
