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The integrity of the officials of North Macedonia is mentioned only before the elections, the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption in this country estimates, therefore, according to him, the inaction of the institutions means that the corrupt officials do not face justice.
The reaction of this Commission came after the actualization of the debate on a law on vetting for current and former state officials.
The vetting process means re-evaluation of high state officials, their professional growth, fight against corruption and stopping the influence of politics or other elements in justice.
The leader of the Democratic Union for Integration (BDI), Ali Ahmeti, has called on the opposition party, VMRO DPMNE, to support the proposal for the vetting, after this party's accusations that the officials of the BDI are immersed in corruption.
The vetting proposal was initiated by the DUI on January 31, 2020, but the document continues to remain in the drawers of the Assembly of North Macedonia.
The draft law on vetting was approved only in the first reading, after 16 days later the Assembly was dissolved due to the April parliamentary elections.
The draft law foresees that a special agency will verify the integrity of all persons who are in public positions.
Officials of the Albanian party, DUI, estimate that through vetting, the aim is to prevent all persons involved in corrupt practices from holding public positions in the institutions of North Macedonia.
Arbër Ademi, chairman of the DUI parliamentary group, told Radio Evropa e Lire that he has the draft law on vetting in his drawers and can put it on the agenda, if there is the will of the political parties to move the process forward.
"I need two minutes to make it part of the procedure", said Ademi.
Even the SDSM has expressed itself in favor of vetting for officials.
The former Macedonian Prime Minister, Dimitar Kovačevski, emphasized last year that the possibilities to finalize the vetting process with the support of the European Union are being examined.
"I have already discussed with the president of the European Commission that the Government wants to carry out vetting at the expert level for all the officials, already elected and appointed, as well as for all those who will be elected or appointed to the post", Kovacevski stated in February of last year.
But, from the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, they estimate that the fight against corruption, which the political parties declare, is undermined by the harsh criticism of the international factor.
"Nobody came up with a clear idea of how the vetting should take place. If the system works, then there is no need for a special law for the vetting of officials, since the verification of high state officials can be done at any moment, if there is political will for it", said Bilana Ivanovska, head of the Commission for Prevention of Corruption, whose mandate ends next week.
The Commission for the Prevention of Corruption apostrophes the case with the mayor of Struga Municipality, Ramiz Merko, who is on the American blacklist due to involvement in corruption, misappropriation of funds and interference in the judiciary, although he continues to hold the position of mayor.
Bashkim Selmani, lecturer of Criminal Law, and former judge, told Radio Evropa e Lire that the immersion of institutions in unexplained debts indicates the high level of corruption in the country, and the lack of responsibility of institutional leaders, as belongs to the means and treasury of the state.
According to him, vetting is possible only if it is done by international legal experts.
"We would trust a vetting, only if it was implemented by an external factor. Vetting from the inside is only a camouflage of the factual situation, and the creation of the opinion by the current officials, that 'here we are clean and we can act further'", said Selmani.
Of the countries in the region, Albania is the only one that has entered the vetting process, and that within the ranks of the judicial system.
Albania started this process in 2016, when deep corruption among judges and prosecutors began to appear.
Over 60 percent of the judges have been replaced and a large part had resigned, even before the verification process had started.
Taking this as a trigger, the vice president of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Nuri Bajrami, told Radio Free Europe that if the officials of North Macedonia were to undergo vetting, the institutions would be left without officials.
In this week's report of the international organization, Transparency International, regarding the Corruption Perception Index, for the year 2023, North Macedonia is listed in the list of countries where weak justice allows corruption to flourish.
This country has made slight progress, with 42 points - two more than last year - but, according to the report, the progress has been reversed, after the changes made to the Criminal Code.
The index annually ranks 180 countries and territories of the world based on the perceived level of corruption in the public sector. It uses a scoring methodology, according to which zero indicates a very corrupt country, while 100 indicates a country free from this phenomenon.
"The decision to reduce the penalties for abuse of official duties for personal gain and the shortened deadlines for starting legal proceedings for suspected corruption cases are in favor of corrupt persons, as about 200 cases will become obsolete, including those against former high-level officials. Politically motivated appointments and dismissals of court officials raise concerns about the judiciary's ability to fight corruption effectively," the report said.
Changes to the Criminal Code were approved in September of last year.
The Government has justified these changes with the need to harmonize the Criminal Code with European practices, but also to waive the points of the legislation, which, according to the Government, were still based on the practices of the past system of the former Yugoslavia.
For those familiar with legal issues in Skopje, the changes were scandalous and "in the function of crime protection"./ REL
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