Skopje, 22 September 2023 (MIA) – The judiciary’s integrity will be built up when there is a strong political will for it, once politics moves all its forms of influence away from the judiciary and once the judges gather the courage to publicly detect problems and the problematic ones among them, said Supreme Court judge and former European Human Rights Court judge, Mirjana Lazarova-Trajkovska, in answer to the question on how to rebuild public trust in the domestic judiciary, posed by Deputy Prime Minister in charge of good governance policies Slavica Grkovska at a conference Friday on women and youth empowerment in the fight against corruption.

According to Lazarova-Trajkovska, currently the main points of influence of politics on the judiciary are the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors and the Judicial Council.

“The recruitment of staff in the judiciary goes through these institutions. And this is the part which politics should slowly turn away from and let the judiciary manage and organize itself,” stressed Lazarova-Trajkovska.

Lazarova-Trajkovska said the country will not move forward without independent judiciary. She underlined that there must be a clear separation of powers, with each branch knowing its role. The Supreme Court judge also pointed to the lack of transparency of the courts as one of the issues.

“In the past three decades, we’ve witnessed how all the sins and errors of the legislative and executive power were transferred over to the judiciary. And the finger is constantly being pointed towards the judiciary. This degrading approach towards the judiciary, as an image, has been built for years and sometimes even the judges themselves participate in the creation of the image that the Court hasn’t done as much as it should have,” said Lazarova-Trajkovska.

Unfortunately, she noted, in recent years even the judges themselves have the perception that their integrity has been shaken not only as a consequence of external influence and pressure, but also as a result of the processes happening within the judiciary, due to the strong penetration of politics.

“Up until a few years ago we had a law which allowed a direct entry into the highest courts, directly into the appellate courts, in the supreme courts, and the merit system of building a career in the judiciary was abandoned for a fairly long period, and now we are living through the consequences of that period. And another segment, that isn’t often discussed is that in the past 15 years or so, we’ve had six amnesty laws, we’ve had interventions in the criminal codes, changes to the procedures,” said Lazarova-Trajkovska.

She also highlighted the financial independence of the judiciary, “on which,” she stressed, “more work must be done as well.”

Photo: Government of North Macedonia