Sali Muarati, the little known Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, suddenly became the talk of the town, after his completely tone deaf statement regarding the planned cuts to the best paid public sector officials. A Government decree was going to reduce top officials such as ministers, public company managers and, yes, judges, to the minimum wage for two months, to try and slightly narrow down the rapidly growing deficit.

But, out of all the decrees adopted by the Government, the Constitutional Court decided, in a rapid move, to strike down this one. In their deliberations before the unanimous decision, the judges did not even try to conceal that they were primarily concerned about their own salaries. But Muarati went furthest, saying that “why make people who are hungy now even hungrier?”
The Government already gave up on the plan pushed by SDSM party leader Zoran Zaev to make the entire public sector receive the minimum wage for two months. This would’ve included low paid lower officials and clerks, but given that it would’ve been electoral poison, Zaev was voted down by his own SDSM party and his DUI coalition partner. The decree eventually covered only 2.000 of the best paid officials, who are often independently wealthy and politically well linked.

Muarati’s statement prompted the press to look into his own financial statements, to see if he is really “starving”, as he protested. He is not a rich man, but for Macedonian circumstances, Muarati he commands a respectable property estimated at over 200.000 EUR – a family house in the village of Vrapciste, an apartment in Skopje, another in Gostivar, gold worth 6.500 EUR, two cars, and two loans he is owed amounting to over 10.000 EUR.

The Government is now scrambling to get its officials to donate the money on their own, into a special fund that was set up to cover coronavirus expenses. The Government blasted the court for preventing it to reduce spending by nearly five million EUR, cutting from people who would hardly be affected by a few lost salaries. But the Court would not budge.

It is true that the Government has a key role in this situation, but its constitutional power to adopt decrees is limited by the Constitution and the laws and its decrees must be kept within their limits. The Court has the right to protect the constitutional order, its press release said.