Macedonian Justice Minister Faces No-Confidence

The country's biggest opposition party, the Social Democrats (SDSM), holds Manevski responsible for failing to prevent politics from influencing the work of the judiciary system.

As a member of the country’s Judicial Council, the body that elects and appoints judges, the SDSM claims that Manevski has significantly jeopardized the independence of the judiciary.

SDSM points to a recent poll conducted by the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, which shows that 43 per cent of judges have said they have been under political pressure.

A proposal to exclude the Justice Minister from the council as a way of ensuring greater independence has recently been put forward by Manevski's party, the main ruling VMRO DPMNE.

SDSM also suspects that Manevski has spent some €1.2 million in expenditures that were not accounted for. They also blame him for not adequately addressing the poor condition of the country's prisons, which is regularly cited as a concern by most international reports on the country.

The opposition Social Democrats also hold Manevski responsible for a number of scandals in the justice sector, including an incident last year in which the opposition presented a document from the state pension fund claiming that the minister had been unlawfully receiving both a state retiree's pension and a minister’s salary.

Manevski denied the claims that he had been deliberately covering that fact and said it was an administrative mistake.

The motion against Manevski is unlikely to pass as the vast majority of legislators come from the ranks of his party, the main ruling centre-right VMRO DPMNE.

However, both the ruling and the opposition parties expect a heated debate during today’s session.