The Network for Protection against Discrimination organized the round table discussion on “Discrimination as a basis for litigation in the Rules of Procedure”, in order to discuss possible solutions with all stakeholders to increase access to court decisions on discrimination, which will increase transparency in the work of courts. Also, the opportunities for monitoring the situation and creating appropriate promotion policies will increase.
The event was attended by representatives of the judicial sector, lawyers, journalists, students, representatives of the Commission for Prevention and Protection against Discrimination as well as participants from citizens’ associations working in the field of discrimination.
Kire Milovski, program coordinator at the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia, stressed the need for effective transparency of court decisions, which means easy search, availability and timely publication. He also stated that although the centralized portal www.sud.mk is presented as a functional base of judgments from all courts with the possibility of search, still court decisions on protection against discrimination cannot be searched on a discriminatory basis, forms and types of discrimination and other data. This is extremely important and is an obstacle in the possibility of data processing and analysis of the case law in the field of discrimination.
Aleksandra Cvetanovska, President of the Macedonian Young Lawyers Association presented the public policy document “Accessibility of Court Decisions in the Field of Protection against Discrimination in the Republic of North Macedonia” prepared within the Network for Protection against Discrimination. She stated that because there is no special way of recording discrimination judgments, but they are recorded on different grounds, it is not possible to easily access them. She presented possible solutions by changing the court rules of procedure, based on the recommendations of the public policy document.
Lawyer Tamara Slaveska Apostolovski, a representative of the Bar Association, spoke about accessibility to court decisions as an obligation of the state. Slaveska Apostolovski stressed that transparency is extremely important, especially the insight into the various grounds of discrimination. According to her, the Court Rules of Procedure need to introduce a special mark for marking cases related to discrimination. This will not only increase their public visibility, but also provide greater access to justice for marginalized communities. Additionally, the segregation of these cases would mean an opportunity for judges to specialize in the field of discrimination.
Senior Associate for Negotiations, Integration and Monitoring in the Sector for European Union and representative of the Ministry of Justice, Marija Brindevska introduced the participants to the work of the Working Group on the amendments to the Rules of Procedure and their previous remarks and proposals incorporated in the Rules of Procedure. She noted that the reports of the Ministry of Justice highlighted the problems related to the marking of cases on grounds of discrimination. Brindevska noted that the working group has not yet established an opinion related to solving this problem, but that they are ready to work on a solution and called for submitting proposals and the involvement of collaborators in the process.
The present journalists asked questions about increasing the transparency of court proceedings. Marija Brindevska pointed out that there are changes related to the transparency of the courts, increased access to hearings, the content that is published on the website of the courts, and an important novelty is the introduction of a register that will contain the data of persons responsible for public relations and spokespersons. The Association of Journalists of Macedonia proposed the publication of a standardized biography, photo and functional e-mail address of each judge. Additionally, Brindevska explained that in accordance with the Plan for priority activities for digitalization of the judiciary for 2021 are included: changes in legislation to introduce the concept of digitalization and online trial, providing equipment for courtrooms for online trials, issuing certificates of criminal records and others services for the citizens, upgrade of the ACMIS system, etc.
Vesna Bendevska, Chairwoman of the Commission for Prevention and Protection against Discrimination, said that the Commission would like to be part of the working body for amendments to the Judicial Rules of Procedure. She stressed that the Commission should establish cooperation with the judiciary to exercise its competence to collect and analyze data in the field of discrimination and to exchange information on current cases. Bendevska also requested special marking of the cases after the misdemeanor proceedings initiated for discrimination.
The Network for Protection against Discrimination has submitted proposals for increasing the accessibility of judgments in cases of discrimination to the working group for amendments to the Rules of Procedure. It requests their serious consideration and remains open to participate in creating a joint solution that will contribute to increased visibility, and transparency, but also improved legal certainty in the field of judicial protection against discrimination, as well as full implementation of the new Law on Prevention and Protection against Discrimination which provides for individual lawsuit and public interest lawsuit (actio popularis) and the new proposed amendments to the Law on Civil Procedure which recognizes discrimination disputes as separate disputes.
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25 November 2021