Members of Parliament from VMRO-DPMNE sent a letter to French Ambassador Christian Thimonier warning against attempts to politically influence the Academy of judges and prosecutors, an ostensibly independent institution tasked with educating the future top cadres in the judiciary. According to the opposition party, which already wrote to EU Ambassador Samuel Zbogar over this, the Zaev Government is pushing through regulation that will water down or remove objective admission criteria and replace them with subjective interviews by a politically appointed commission.
The Government wants to deepen its patronage and nepotism reach into the judiciary and is proposing that the objectively received points of the candidates are replaced with a grade that would depend on a subjective interview by as much as 70 percent, instead of the current 10 percent. Add to this the reports that children and close relatives of Government and judicial officials are applying for seats in the Academy and it is clear that the merit system is under a serious threat, is written in the letter to Ambassador Thimonier, which was made public by VMRO-DPMNE member of Parliament Antonio Milososki.
France has the most critical approach to Macedonia’s application to open EU accession talks this October. Under SDSM, the judiciary was turned into a tool for political persecution of the opposition and critical voices, with hundreds of VMRO-DPMNE officials and activists facing charges and politically driven interrogation.
Comments are closed for this post.