The Integrity of officials in North Macedonia is only mentioned before elections, assesses the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption in the country, therefore, according to it, the inaction of institutions causes corrupt officials not to face justice.
The reaction of this Commission has come after the debate was updated on a vetting law for current officials and former state officials.
The vetting process implies the reassessment of high state officials, their professional enhancement, the fight against corruption, and the prevention of political influence or other elements in justice.
The leader of the Democratic Union for Integration (BDI), Ali Ahmeti, has called on the opposition party, VMRO-DPMNE, to support the proposal for vetting, following accusations by this party that BDI officials are involved in corruption.
The proposal for vetting was initiated by BDI on January 31, 2020, but the document remains in the shelves of the North Macedonian Parliament.
The draft law for vetting has only been approved in the first reading, as 16 days later the Parliament was dissolved due to the parliamentary elections in April.
The draft law envisages that a special agency verifies the integrity of all individuals in public positions.
Officials of the Albanian party, BDI, believe that through vetting, the aim is to prevent all individuals involved in corrupt acts from holding public positions in the institutions of North Macedonia.
Arbër Ademi, chairman of the parliamentary group of BDI, told Radio Free Europe that the draft law for vetting is in the shelves and it can be put on the agenda if there is political will from the political parties to move the process forward.
“I need only two minutes to make it part of the procedure,” Ademi said.
The SDSM has also expressed support for vetting officials.
Former Macedonian Prime Minister Dimitar Kovačevski emphasized last year that possibilities are being considered to finalize the vetting process with the support of the European Union.
“I have already discussed with the Chairman of the European Commission that the Government wants to conduct vetting at the expert level for all elected and appointed officials, as well as for all those who will be elected or appointed to positions,” Kovačevski said last February.
However, the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption believes that the fight against corruption, declared by political parties, is undermined by harsh criticism from the international community.
“No one came up with a clear idea of how vetting should be conducted. If the system works, then there is no need for a separate law for vetting officials, as the verification of high state officials can be done at any time if there is political will for it,” emphasized Bilana Ivanovska, chair of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, whose term ends next week.
From the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, they highlight the case of the Mayor of Struga, Ramiz Merko, who is on the U.S. blacklist due to involvement in corruption, misuse of funds, and interference in the judiciary, although he continues to hold the position of mayor.
Bashkim Selmani, lecturer in Criminal Law and former judge, told Radio Free Europe that the entanglement of institutions in unexplainable debts indicates a high level of corruption in the country and the lack of accountability of institutional leaders regarding state funds and treasury.
According to him, vetting is only possible if it is carried out by international justice experts.
“We would only trust a vetting process if it were carried out by an external factor. Vetting from within is just a camouflage of the factual situation and the creation of the opinion by current officials that ‘we are clean and can proceed further’,” Selmani said.
From the countries in the region, Albania is the only one that has entered the vetting process, and that within the ranks of the judiciary.
Albania started this process in 2016, when deep corruption began to emerge among judges and prosecutors.
Over 60 percent of judges have been replaced and a large number have resigned, without the verification process having started.
Taking this as a basis, the Deputy Chairman of the Commission against Corruption, Nuri Bajrami, told Radio Free Europe that if North Macedonian officials were to undergo vetting, the institutions would be left without officials.
In a report of Transparency International regarding the Corruption Perception Index for 2023, North Macedonia is ranked on the list of countries where weak justice enables the flourishing of corruption.
The country has made slight progress, with 42 points – two more than last year – but according to the report, progress has regressed after changes made to the Penal Code.
The Index ranks 180 states and territories worldwide based on the perceived level of corruption in the public sector. It uses a scoring methodology, where zero indicates a highly corrupt country, while 100 denotes a clean one.
“The decision to reduce sentences for abuse of official duties for personal gain and the shortened deadlines for initiating legal proceedings for suspected corruption cases are in favor of corrupt individuals, as about 200 cases will be time-barred, including those against former high-level officials. Politically motivated appointments and dismissals of court officials raise concerns about the judiciary’s ability to effectively fight corruption,” the report stated.
Changes to the Penal Code were approved last September.
The Government has justified these changes with the need to harmonize the Penal Code with European practices but also to abandon points of legislation, which according to the Government, were still based on the practices of the former Yugoslav system.
For legal experts in Skopje, the changes have been scandalous and “in the service of protecting crime”.
