Timeline – news digest by CIVIL (June 13, 2016)

News digest of main events for Republic of Macedonia (June 13, 2016): No detention for Mayor of Bitola, Vladimir Taleski || Request of Special Prosecutor’s Office for amendments to the Law on Witnesses Protection unsuccessful || There are minimum conditions for elections in Autumn ||  Colorful Revolution continues its countdown || Debate on whether the SPO is responsible for the “Fortress” case || The Court to decide on the impeachment of Ivanov

No detention for Mayor of Bitola, Court seizes his passport

After almost two hours of questioning by a pre-trial judge, the Mayor of Bitola Vladimir Taleski left the Criminal Court from the back side of the building. Taleski was accompanied by lawyer Nikola Dodoski, who is also the lawyer of Nikola Gruevski. Even though the prosecutors of the Special Prosecution brought boxes with evidence, the Court did not determine a measure for detention of the Bitola Mayor. However, according to the Court Announcement, Taleski’s passport was seized as a precautionary measure.

The request of the Special Prosecutor’s Office for amendments to the Law on Witness Protection was unsuccessful

Despite the fact that the Special Prosecutor’s Office requested from the Assembly amendments to the Law on Witness Protection several months ago, so far the parties have not had much interest to pass the initiative. SDSM say that even if they were to initiate the procedure, they still wouldn’t be able to achieve anything significant without the votes of DUI and DPA. The SPO requested for their competence in the procedure for witness protection to be regulated in order to eliminate the possibility of encountering obstacles in their work.

There are minimum conditions for elections in Autumn

With the withdrawal of the abolition and the postponement of the elections, minimum conditions have been created for organizing fair and democratic elections, stated the spokesman for SDSM, Petre Silegov. “We believe that negotiations should start and that conditions need to be agreed so that fair and democratic elections can be organized in Autumn. If we start today, and if we have minimum political will, there is no reason why conditions cannot be created for holding credible elections in October”, said Silegov.

Colorful Revolution continues its countdown

Following last night’s guerrilla action on the Bridge of Civilizations, today the “Colorful Revolutionaries” were in similar action near the Constitutional Court. The Colorful Revolution wrote a large number “5” with paint in order to show how many more days are remaining until the deadline of June 18, and at the same time in a circle they wrote “The Special Prosecutor’s Office is constitutional”. With this, protestors continue to count down and remind on two key demands – for the Constitutional Court to determine the constitutionality of the SPO, and for the persecution of all participants in the Colorful Revolution protests to stop.

Debate on whether the SPO is responsible for the “Fortress” case

The team of Katica Janeva see other motives in the explanation of the Court concerning the request of the SPO, other than further regulation of documents, and that they are intended to problematize the competency of the Prosecution, and only in relation to one case – in which one of the suspects is the former Minister of Interior Gordana Jankuloska. The Court is returning the “Puc” case back to where it stopped and is requesting for a convicted person to be returned to jail, and regarding the case on the surveillance equipment, the Court is requesting for Janeva to give justification why she had taken the case.

The Court to decide on the impeachment of Ivanov

Today the Assembly started a debate on the impeachment of President Gjorgje Ivanov. Members of Parliament share different opinions. President Ivanov violated the Constitution and the laws and became a symbol of the “Gruevism”, with the decision for 107 pardons of 56 officials passed in one day, accused the opposition. VMRO-DPMNE Members of Parliament believe that Ivanov acted in accordance to the Constitution and the Law on Pardoning. Ivanov did not attend today’s session. The decision to initiate a procedure before the Constitutional Court to determine the responsibility of the President needs to be adopted by a two-thirds majority vote of the Assembly, or of at least 82 Members of Parliament.

CIVIL publishes this news digest of main events, opinion and other important and interesting news with an aim to contribute to objective information on the events and processes, including events that some media in Republic of Macedonia do not cover or provide very little information.