Following the surprising change at the helm of the Judicial Council, social media posts have surfaced revealing that the new head of this ostensibly independent and non-partisan institution is a partisan through and through.
The Council has the power to appoint, dismiss and evaluate the work of judges. It’s head, Pavlina Crvenkovska, resigned citing unspecified pressure that was aimed at her. Her appointment was controversial, both because of her ties to the ruling SDSM party and the alleged criminal ties of her husband.
Crvenkovska was replaced with Vesna Dameva, who is not an experienced judge, which is unusual of itself, and was member of the SDSM party’s commission on the rule of law. She denied her links to the party, but in a way that sparked amusement in the public – confronted with a picture with former SDSM leader Zoran Zaev, Dameva said that “the photograph should not leave the impression in the public that I am in any way among the people present in the photograph”.
Now, the social media channels of her husband Mladen Damev have come to light. In them, during the SDSM led Colored Revolution, he calls for “bulldozers to the streets”, refers to former Prime Minister Gruevski as the Fuhrer and using other unprintable words.
Mladen Damev is on the board of the Skopski Pazar operator of markets, a company that has long been close to SDSM and faces criminal cases in the courts. From her new position, Vesna Dameva could easily influence these cases in favor of her husband’s company.
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