Macedonia Court Again Tackles Lustration Law

The Court decided today to further investigate whether it is constitutional to oblige people from a wide range of professions to swear that they did not collaborate with the secret police during Communism and afterwards. It will also examine the time period covered by the law, which is now applicable until 2019.

“The Court instigated a procedure to probe the constitutional basis of 12 articles of the law,” Court spokesperson Jugoslav Milenkovic told Balkan Insight.

The provisions will remain suspended until the Court reaches a final ruling.

This is the second time that the Court has tackled this contentious piece of legislation, which was adopted in 2008 at the behest of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's ruling VMRO DPMNE party.

Macedonia followed in the steps of many former communist and socialist states which have enacted similar laws in order to address past injustices stemming from politically motivated judicial proceedings.

All persons found to be former collaborators are to resign from office and are guaranteed anonymity.
 
However, the law has not been without controversy.

In March 2010 the Court shortened the time span covered by the lustration process, which was originally intended to be applicable until 2008. The court ruled that the law may cover only the country’s Communist period from 1945 to 1991 and not the period after the country gained independence from the former Yugoslavia and became a democratic society.

But the first move to curb the law did not last long. In March 2011, parliament again widened the span of the law and made it applicable until 2019.

In addition, MPs voted to broaden the scope of professions subject to inspection to include journalists, NGOs, clergy, professors, lawyers and members of other professions.
 
The move to investigate such a wide variety of professions sparked heated debate. The opposition Social Democrats and some people found to be collaborators accused the ruling party of selectively applying the law for political retaliation against its opponents.

“The way the lustration is being practiced in Macedonia leaves plenty of room for doubt,” says Borce Davitkovski, a constitutional law professor at Skopje's Faculty of Law.

He says that the law "comes a bit late" compared to other countries and that it may serve for high-level acts of political revenge.
 
So far the State Commission for Lustration, tasked with verifying the dossiers of those affected the law, has pronounced 26 persons as former collaborators.

Some who have been probed for spying or found to be collaborators, like the head of the Open Society Institute- Macedonia, Vladimir Milcin; the former head of the Constitutional Court, Trendafil Ivanovski, and former police minister Ljubomir Frckoski openly accused the government of deliberately targeting them for political reasons.
 
The ruling party continues to insist it only wishes to amend past injustices.