English
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski announced an initiative to speed up the reforms of the badly discredited judicial system by calling on Parliament to put the members of the Judicial Council to a vote of confidence. The proposal would not change the model in which the Judicial Council members are elected and they would not be forced to resign if they lose the vote. But, Prime Minister Mickoski believes that they would be morally impelled to do so.
The proposal comes after the revelation that a Criminal Court judge allowed an adult drug dealer with a prior traffic accident record to be sent to a juvenile facility – the dealer caused another crash, killing a young art designer in Skopje last week.
In these past months I must say that I was introduced in detail in the way the judicial and prosecutorial system works in this country, its institutional memory and all related to it. When I don’t know a subject, I try to learn about it, and I have analyzed and discussed it with the Justice Minsiter, employees of the Ministry, his deputy, the members of Parliament. It is no secret that the citizens are not satisfied with the way the judiciary and the prosecution works. It is a swamp full of controversies and scandals, Prime Minister Mickoski said, adding that it needs a blow to the head to be reformed, not improvised measures.
A number of members of the Judicial Council are elected in Parliament, and they are the ones who would be put to a vote, under Mickoski’s plan. “It is true that even if they lose the vote of confidence, they can remain as members of the Judicial Council. But, in a situation when the body that elected you now votes that it has no more confidence in you, and you stubbornly remain in that position, that is not proper. We have other mechanisms, other tools, but I hope that, if the members of Parliament reach a vote of no confidence, the members of the Judicial Council will show integrity and will resign themselves, Mickoski said.
