The Constitutional Court of North Macedonia has decided to initiate the procedure for assessing the constitutionality of the Law on Personal Names, specifically the parts of the law that stipulate ethnic affiliation on birth, marriage, and death certificates.
Until a final decision is reached, the Constitutional Court’s “temporary measure” is in effect, prohibiting the issuance of certificates by relevant institutions.
This concerns a provision of the 1995 law, based on which the Ministry of Justice, on May 29, approved an administrative instruction allowing the inclusion of ethnic affiliation on personal records certificates.
This provision was rejected by the Constitutional Court on September 27, as it was not published in the Official Gazette within the legal deadlines.
To prevent a new instruction from the Ministry of Justice, based on legal deadlines for publication in the Official Gazette, the political party Left has initiated a new assessment of the constitutionality of the law’s provisions or the removal of clauses allowing the inclusion of ethnic affiliation on certificates.
The party has justified its initiative before the Constitutional Court by stating that “the expression of national identity is an individual feeling that cannot be emphasized in public documents”.
“National affiliation is a personal feeling of the citizen and cannot be verified by a public document, i.e., a document issued by a state authority, mainly because the freedom of expression of nationality includes the right to change the feeling of national affiliation,” the initiative submitted to the Constitutional Court states.
The initiative for including an ethnic column in the certificates of the Personal Names Book, proposed by Justice Minister Krenar Lloga, was undertaken to prevent, according to him, the misuse of ethnic affiliation during hirings in state institutions.
During job competitions announced by ministries, directorates, state agencies, funds, and other enterprises, an electronic mechanism known as the “balancer” is applied, determining the ethnic community to which the employed individuals must belong.
Minister Lloga has previously stated that he expects the Constitutional Court to reject the initiative of the Left party and continue issuing certificates with ethnic affiliation.
“I expect the Constitutional Court to reject the Left party’s initiative, and the law will remain in force. As soon as we have a new decision from the Court, we will have new certificates. This means that the whole procedure for a new instruction will be repeated. We will have certificates with an ethnic column to prevent misuse during hirings based on ethnic affiliation,” Minister Lloga said.
There have been allegations of false declaration of ethnic affiliation after almost every job competition announced by state institutions. This led the Ministry of Justice to take measures, such as those with the certificates of the Personal Names Book, which are now suspended by the Constitutional Court.
The decision of the Ministry of Justice had also caused clashes among political parties, especially among the Macedonian opposition, which had accused “violation of the Constitution”. However, according to Minister Lloga, such reactions were more related to “opposition to Albanian ethnic affiliation” on certificates.
