The European Union has recommended 40 urgent measures for reforms in the Macedonian Judicial Council, BGNES reported.
Brussels insists that the recommendations become a priority for the current, but also for any future government and all judicial institutions in North Macedonia.
After the series of scandals that rocked the Judicial Council, the body was placed under the supervision of the European Union (EU), which in September launched a mission to assess its work, and today the European ambassador, David Gere, presented the conclusions.
Geer called for urgent action to address the issues because "the judicial system is at a critical juncture." The problems in the Judicial Council are not from yesterday, but have been accumulating for a long time and have not been solved in a systematic way. "All this has led to the current challenges facing the work of the body, including the non-enforcement of laws and the lack of good practices, which "affects the overall work of the judicial system," the ambassador added.
The EU mission emphasizes that the implementation of the recommendations will have no value if it is not carried out with political will and based on the principles of integrity, accountability and transparency.
The report states that the EU recommends the implementation of all 40 measures, some of which, Gere said, are short-term and others medium- and long-term. The implementation of 23 of them requires constitutional and legal changes, and 17 can be implemented by the Judicial Council itself. They are divided into 6 categories and include structural reforms in the body, changing the mandate and selection process of members, improving transparency practices, increasing financial independence and involving civil society in monitoring its work.
"Although all this cannot be implemented immediately, the EU expects it to be a top priority of all future reforms, as it is essentially the basis of the rule of law and the integrity of the judicial system," the mission said.
The Judicial Council is the most important institution in the country's judicial system, as it makes decisions about the responsibility, discipline and dismissal of judges.
BGNES reminds the evaluation mission by the EU began after great upheavals, after two chairmen of the body were replaced in 5 months. First, Pavlina Crvenkovska, who resigned in November, and then Vesna Dameva was released.
The monitoring process was carried out by legal experts from Croatia, Belgium and Italy in September this year. /BGNES
