Skopje, 13 March 2025 (MIA) - Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Thursday there would be protests in the country “if the corrupt judges who Parliament adopted no-confidence motions against don’t resign”, stressing he would be in the front rows at the protests.

Asked what the next steps would be if the five Judicial Council members who Parliament adopted no-confidence motions against don’t step down, the Prime Minister told a Kanal 5 TV interview the people are “hungry” for justice and would take to the streets in protest.

“There will be protests, the people will come out on the street and protest, the people are hungry and thirsty for justice. Imagine: the citizens have a trust of 2 or 3 percent in you, you get dismissed and yet you refuse to leave, you continue to be stubborn. There will be protests, I will be the first to stand and lead the people, I promise this is what will happen,” Mickoski said.

Regarding potential replacements of the five members of the Council, the Prime Minister said discussions would be held but that “there can be no justice with judges or prosecutors of members of the Judicial Council and the Council of Public Prosecutors who come from partisan HQs”.

“All of these processes that we are leading, we are not leading them just to have things be the same, there is no reason for things to remain the same but with new people. We have a report from the [EU] peer review mission which clearly provides instructions about how reforms should progress, and we will implement them. We will stick to the report. We just need something to change because things won’t work like this if we want to have a country. I want to have a country and my children to grow in this country and to form families in this country, and I will fight for such a country,” Mickoski said.

On Tuesday, Parliament adopted motions of no-confidence against five members of the Judicial Council: Vesna Dameva, Pavlina Crvenkovska, Milazim Mustafa, Tanja Chacharova Ilievska and Selim Ademi.  The motions were filed back in February by 67 MPs from the ruling coalition. Despite the adoption of the motions, according to the Law on Judicial Council, the members themselves decide whether they will step down from their posts.

In a media statement earlier on Thursday, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for North Macedonia, Austrian MEP Thomas Waitz said the government coalition’s “push for members of the Judicial Council to resign or be dismissed based on their alleged political affiliation” is “a concerning sign of political interference in the judiciary”.

“This call by the government is a concerning sign of political interference in the judiciary. The independence of the judicial system is crucial for the rule of law and separation of power which are fundamental values for North Macedonia‘s path into the EU,” Waitz said in the statement.

Photo: Government