Two-thirds of the citizens do not believe that a fair and just trial can be obtained in Macedonia, and nearly three-quarters are of the opinion that the law does not apply equally to everyone, according to the latest poll conducted for “Detektor” by the Institute for Political Research – Skopje (IPIS).

According to the poll, 65.7% of citizens believe that a fair and just trial cannot be obtained in Macedonia, while 19.3% are convinced of the opposite. Macedonians and ethnic Albanians see this issue completely differently, although they mostly agree that a fair trial cannot be obtained in Macedonia. However, while this attitude is shared by 73.2% of Macedonians, “only” 42% of ethnic Albanians believe that you cannot get a fair trial, in contrast to 32.7% who believe that in Macedonia you can be tried in a fair procedure. This percentage among ethnic Macedonians is reduced to only 14.8%.

73.9% of citizens say that in Macedonia the law does not apply equally to everyone, while only 17.3% see unselective justice.

The comparison of this poll with the IPIS poll conducted 4 years ago for Detektor shows that there is no significant difference, although there is a slight increase in citizens who today believe that the law does not apply equally to everyone.

Even on this question, the views differ significantly if the ethnic structure of the respondents is analyzed. So, 81.8% of Macedonians believe that the law does not apply equally to everyone, while 51% of ethnic Albanians share this opinion.

Looking at regions, in the Vardar and Eastern regions, over 90% of the respondents believe that justice is selective, while in the Southeast and in the Polog region, this view is shared by about 60% of the respondents.

70.9% of the respondents say that the Macedonian judiciary is not efficient, while 16.4% believe it is efficient.

And here the comparison with the previous poll conducted by IPIS for Detektor in 2019 shows an increase in the number of citizens who think that the judiciary is not efficient, although the difference is not very big.

However, there is a big difference between the views of Macedonians and ethnic Albanians on this issue. While close to 80% of Macedonians believe that the judiciary is not efficient, only 46% of ethnic Albanians share this view.

In general, citizens have very little trust in the justice system. Only 24% trust the judiciary, while exactly 70% of the respondents do not trust it. Somewhere here are the figures for the prosecution. It is distrusted by 67% of the respondents, while 25% trust it.

35% of citizens trust the Ombudsman and 50.4% distrust it.

75.3% of the respondents believe that the Macedonian judiciary is not independent, while only 11% believe that it is resistant to external influences. Compared to our survey from 4 years ago, there is a significant increase in the number of citizens who today believe that the judiciary is not independent. If in 2019 this figure was fixed at just under 60%, today it goes over 75%. And here Macedonians and ethnic Albanians have quite different views. While 83% of Macedonians believe that we do not have an independent judiciary, this view is shared by 52.9% of ethnic Albanians.

The poll for Detektor was conducted by the Institute for Political Research -Skopje on a representative sample of 1115 respondents in the period from February 1 to 4 this year.