The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has rejected the appeal over the 2016 annulled pardon of former president Gjorge Ivanov as unfounded. With the pardon decision, he pardoned 56 people suspected and convicted in several cases led by the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office, including former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, the Minister of Transport and Communications in his government Mile Janakieski, the Minister of Internal Affairs Gordana Jankuloska, the former director of UBK Saso Mijalkov and other state officials at the time.

The European Court of Human Rights decided on the appeal filed by eight citizens of the Republic of Macedonia in 2020. The decision of the Court is available at the following link.

It is about the pardon decision of former president Gjorge Ivanov in April 2016. In 2016, the Constitutional Court overturned the legal amendments from 2009 in which Article 11 was deleted, which gave the president the opportunity to grant pardons even without conducting the pardon procedure.

Immediately after the decision of the Constitutional Court, Ivanov decided to pardon the then officials from VMRO-DPMNE, which led to massive protests. After the reactions in the public, amendments were made to the Law on Pardons, which opened up space for the withdrawal of the pardons.