Macedonia To Make Spy Dossiers Public

Macedonian Parliament

Macedonia's governing VMRO DPMNE party says it's mulling release of the dossiers to empower the so-called Lustration Commission, the body tasked with rooting out former spies, and which has been accused of selectively targeting critics of the government.

“This measure will allow the commission to put certain spy dossiers on the internet,” Silvana Boneva, coordinator of the VMRO DPMNE caucus in parliament, said.

Boneva said a draft bill was already written and would soon be put before parliament where the ruling party has a working majority. Current Lustration Law bans revealing the identities of those named in the dossiers, or the dossiers themselves.

Following the practice of many former Communist countries, Macedonia adopted a Lustration Law in 2008 aimed at rectifying injustices from the Communist era, when people were tried and jailed based on information from police informants.

According to the law all public office holders, former and current politicians, journalists, university professors, lawyers, clergy and NGO activists must pass a probe before the Lustration Commission.

Those found to be former spies based on classified police dossiers are obliged to resign though their identities are supposed to be kept secret.

However, many have voiced concerns about potential abuses of the law, saying they fear the ruling party is using the system to target political opponents.

Some people named as former collaborators have come out in public on their own, claiming they are being politically lynched.

The former head of the Constitutional Court, Trendafil Ivanovski, and the theatre director and head of the Open Society Institute Macedonia, Vladimir Milcin, are among those who have said they had been called former police spies.

Denying the claims, they accuse the authorities of taking revenge on them for holding stands contrary to government policy.

In a most recent case in December Law professor and former presidential candidate Ljubomir Frckoski said he was the target of a political witch hunt after the Lustration Commission started checking his files.

Frckoski ran as presidential candidate at the 2009 elections, backed by the country’s centre-left opposition, coming second.