Documents: Fundamental rights - Procedural safeguards - Right to a fair trial

Judicial decisions shall be drafted in an accessible, simple, and clear language. Judges shall issue reasoned decisions, pronounced in public within a reasonable time, based on fair and public hearing. Judges shall use appropriate case management methods. In pursuance with the ECtHR case-law, the reasoning must contain a specific and explicit reply to key importance arguments, submissions and claims, which are decisive for the outcome of the proceedings, i.e., for the adoption of the court decision. The purpose of this analysis is to contribute to improving the quality of court decisions in the civil cases, to improve the procedure itself, as well as to contribute to improving the uniformity of decisions in order to respond to citizens’ expectations with regard to their right to a fair and just trial and access to justice.

Constitutional judiciary has been existing in Macedonia for almost six decades. The First Constitutional Court, as a separate constitutional order institution controlling constitutionality of laws and constitutionality and legality of other general legal acts, was introduced with the 1963 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. Its organizational setting, powers and working procedures for exercising its jurisdiction were regulated in detail with a special law. In accordance with its powers, the Constitutional Court exercised additional a posteriori or conditional repressive control over the constitutionality of the laws by making decisions that had the legal effect of determining unconstitutionality of a law. Where the Assembly failed to harmonize the law within 6 months, the Constitutional Court would conclude, with a new decision, that such law was abrogated.

The analysis of the quality of court decisions in misdemeanor cases written by Dr. Mariana Loncar Velkova, was made on a total of 60 decisions from four appellate areas, issued in the period from 2017 to 2020, where one of the parties in the proceedings is a natural person. The analysis was based on a set of qualitative indicators as per the Methodology for Analyzing the Quality and Uniformity of Court Decisions and it does not quantify the results obtained with the quantitative indicators according to the Methodology. Each decision was individually analyzed without being compared with the others, by applying the indicators from the mentioned Methodology.

This Report is based on the plan for monitoring the implementation and assessment of the results of the 2017-2022 Strategy for Reform of the Judicial Sector, using citizen-oriented indicators, i.e. indicators facilitating the assessment of the interaction of citizens with the justice system institutions, as well as the degree of attainment of strategic goals, guidelines, measures and activities envisaged under the Strategy. The indicators help measure the results from the human rights perspective and from the viewpoint of the Strategy’s effects on citizens, against the background of the overall work of the justice system. This Report covers the following strategic goals set forth under the Strategy: quality, efficiency, transparency, strategic planning and policy-making, judicial institutions, criminal matters, misdemeanour matters and civil matters. The indicators do not cover the following strategic goals under the Strategy: independence and impartiality, liability, access to just

This public policy brief builds on the views expressed in the Public Policy Dialogue held on December 11, 2019 at Hotel Arka in Skopje as part of the “Partnership Justitia” project: Restoring Citizens’ Confidence ”, implemented by the European Policy Institute and the ZENIT Association, funded by the European Union through the Sector for Central Financing and Contracting and co-financed by the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia. The project aims to contribute to restoring citizens’ confidence in the Macedonian justice sector, by significantly involving civil society in essential reforms. The final beneficiaries of this project are the institutions in the field of judiciary. The dialogue consisted of two sessions attended by about 60 representatives from the Ministry of Justice, the Judicial Council, the Council of Public Prosecutors, judges, public prosecutors, experts in the field, civil society representatives and diplomatic missions in the Republic of North Macedonia.

• Towards the Civic Panopticon: Achieving Better Balance between Privacy Safeguarding and the Communication Monitoring Need • Who is the Employer: the Municipality or the Political Party? • Funding Sources, Obtained Funding Levels, and Impact Thereof upon the Judiciary • Will There Be “Whistleblowers” at Universities? Implications of the Law on Whistleblower Protection and Corruption Prevention in the Republic of Macedonia’s Higher Education System • Monitoring the Implementation of International Standards for Fair Trial at the Skopje I and Skopje II Primary Courts • Free Legal Aid – Challenges and Solutions • Accessibility and Inclusiveness of Courts in Macedonia • Analysis of the Law on Deciding and Determining the Amount of the Penalty • Analysis of the enactment of the Law on Deciding and Determining the Amount of the Penalty