Documents: Fundamental rights - Procedural safeguards

Article 49 TEU lays out the requirement for new members states: respect and promotion of EU values. Article 2 TEU/Article 19 TEU/Article 67 TFEU recognize that while states have different legal systems, they must respect common rule of law standards for assuring effective legal protection (effective remedy/fair trial). This right is entailed in Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Articles 6 and 13 of the European Convention on Human rights.

Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and various procedural rights lay out detention standards in the EU. The United Nations have established the following instruments in this area: Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and its Optional Protocol and UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules), while the Council of Europe also sets out detention standards in the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

EU Legislation on victims' rights includes: • Victims' Rights Directive 2012/29/EU - Ensures minimum rights for all victims, all crimes • Directive European Protection Order 2011/99/EU + Regulation 606/2013 - Two instruments providing for mutual recognition of protection orders • Compensation Directive 2004/80/EC – Entailing obligation to set up national compensation scheme for victims of violent intentional crime

The Charter of Fundamental Rights was formally proclaimed in Nice in December 2000 by the European Parliament, Council and Commission and on 1 December 2009, with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the Charter was given binding legal effect equal to the Treaties. The Charter entrenches all the rights found in the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU; the rights and freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights; other rights and principles resulting from the common, constitutional traditions of EU countries and other international instruments. It creates legal certainty in the EU, by making fundamental rights clearer and more visible.

The strengthening of procedural rights of suspected or accused persons in criminal proceedings in the European Union is done by adopting and implementing the following: • Directive 2010/64/EU (27/10/2013) - Right to interpretation and translation • Directive 2012/13/EU (02/06/2014) - Right to information • Directive 2013/48/EU (27/11/2016) - Right of access to lawyer • Directive (EU)2016/343 (01/04/2018) - Presumption of innocence and right to be present at one's trial • Directive (EU) 2016/800 (11/06/2019) - Procedural safeguards for children • Directive (EU) 2016/1919 (26/10/2016) - Legal aid

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 caused a health, economic and social crisis in the Republic of North Macedonia. In response to the pandemic, the government took a number of restrictive measures to prevent people from being exposed to the virus, thus slowing down its spreading, and introduced a set of measures to mitigate the adverse effects of the imposed restrictions. The adopted measures contributed significantly towards restricting citizens’ rights, and included a curfew, maintaining social distance, restricting movement and gathering, closing borders and stopping air traffic, online education, and the like. While such restrictions of the freedoms and rights may have, in part, been necessary to control the pandemic, many of them were too broad or neglected to consider effects on the most vulnerable categories of citizens, not only of the virus, but also of the socio-economic consequences. Hence, the purpose of this public policy paper is to analyze the response of the Gov

The number of detained persons in 2021 (388) is continuously increasing compared to the previous years (2020 – 317, 2019 – 225). There is a slight decrease in the number of detained children in 2021 (55) compared to the same period in 2020 (76). The average period that children spent in detention in RTC Vinojug is 29 days and the maximum is 50 days. In most cases, legal guardian was appointed to the unaccompanied detained children. However sometimes there was a delay in the timely appointment of a guardian. In 2021 the persons were detained at three locations in RC Gazi Baba, RTC Vinojug and RTC Tabanovce. Migrants at RTC Vinojug who were detained as witnesses in the proceedings against the smugglers continued to be held in quarantine before being brought in front of a public prosecutor.