Documents: With tag Fundamental rights

The COVID-19 virus pandemic has caused global effects on a scale incomparable to any other event in human history. The fast-growing health crisis, which hit almost every country in the world, is causing unforeseeable economic and social consequences, from which humanity is yet to recover. Given the seriousness and uncertainty of the events, many governments, including ours, considered it necessary to declare a state of emergency in order to properly address the dangers and harms of the new coronavirus. And since in times of а state emergency the Government can take action beyond what would normally be allowed, it also meant an alarm for the vigilance of human rights defenders.

This policy brief summarises the main findings and recommendations from the Shadow Report on Chapter 23 for the period from May 2016 to January 2018 prepared by the European Policy Institute-Skopje and the Helsinki Committee for the Human Rights. The reporting includes three distinct periods: - period prior to the early parliamentary elections on 11 December 2016, - transition period after the elections and before the formation of the new Government on 31 May 2017 and - period from the election of the new Government by the end of January 2018. The report presents the key developments in the analysed period and provides policy recommendations in each of the areas of Chapter 23. For a detailed analysis of all areas please see the Shadow Report.

Project “Network 23+” implemented by the European Policy Institute-Skopje and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights aims at providing structured contribution of the civil society in monitoring and assessing the policies included in Chapter 23 of the EU Acquis – Judiciary and Fundamental Rights. This report unifies all the findings, conclusions and recommendations that resulted from the monitoring of the areas structured in Chapter 23 – Judiciary and Fundamental Rights into a single coherent entirety. In fact, this is the third Shadow Report published by “Network 23”. The previous two cover the periods of October 2014-July 2015 and July 2015-April 2016. This report encompasses the period between the beginning of May 2016 and the end of January 2018. The report’s period has been extended in order to correspond to the new cycle of European Commission reports, which are to be released in April.

According to the report of Helsinki Committee, in 2012 were found serious violations of freedoms and rights of citizens and drastic violations of the rule of law and the state of law.