The last opinion of the Commission for Protection of Discrimination, which established discrimination on the part of the Basic Court Skopje 1 and judge Dobrila Kacarska due to the non-adherence to the right of fair proceeding of Nikola Gruevski, convicted to two years in prison in the case “Tank”, calls the credibility of this institution into question. Not only it established discrimination without elaborating on the discriminatory grounds (personal and family status) and scheduled an extraordinary session, but also the Commission favored the former prime minister’s complaint before the other complaints whose three-month deadline has been long expired. The establishment of discrimination in the former prime minister’s case is yet another indicator of the unprofessionalism and bias of the Commission, while it’s obvious that its members abuse their office with the aim to establish that the like-minded people have been discriminated even in cases of evident absence of discrimination.
In the last three years alone, the members of the Network for Protection from Discrimination have lodged 19 complaints in cases of discrimination against marginalized groups of citizens and the average delay amounts to nearly 4 months, while three complaints are being delayed for more than a year. For instance, the Commission hasn’t ruled on the complaint against Milenko Nedelkovski, lodged on 2 February 2017.
Contrary to the ignoring of the marginalized communities, the Commission ruled swiftly and before the deadline in the case of the former prime minister Nikola Gruevski.
The Network for Protection against Discrimination has been continuously alarming about the inefficient protection from discrimination and the lack of capacity of the Commission for Protection from Discrimination to set itself as a recognized institution that will take the side of the discriminated. Therefore, we appeal to the Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia to commence the procedure for enacting the new Law on Prevention and Protection from Discrimination urgently, which will provide the baseline for dismissing Commission’s current composition pursuant to reinforced criteria for election and wider competencies for prevention and protection from discrimination.
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22 November 2018