Skopje, 3 September 2025 (MIA) – Constitutional courts aren’t under the jurisdiction of neighbouring politicians, this court’s decisions are final and should not be commented on, President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova said Wednesday when asked about the letter of Bulgarian Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev sent to his EU counterparts calling the initiative to assess the constitutionality of the Protocol of the Friendship Treaty with Bulgaria “unnecessary provocation” and “legally absurd procedure.”

It is up to the Constitutional Court to decide if there are grounds to open proceedings after an initiative has been submitted.

“I find it uncomfortable to comment on such statements and to comment on the work of the Constitutional Court. The constitutional courts are beyond the separation of powers within the country and they are certainly not under the jurisdiction of neighbouring politicians. If someone initiated a procedure in the Constitutional Court, it is up to the Constitutional Court to decide whether there are grounds to proceed. The decisions of the constitutional courts in Bulgaria and in Macedonia are final and I would never comment on them,” Siljanovska Davkova told reporters in Ohrid.

On August 13, the Constitutional Court revealed that it formed a case in which the Protocol from the second meeting of the joint historical commission with Bulgaria is disputed.

Former lawmaker and DOM party leader Liljana Popovska filed the initiative before the Court, noting that the Protocol, signed on 17 June 2022, violates the Constitution and claiming its form and content is inappropriate and goes beyond the frames of a legal act by elaborating an article from an agreement between two countries and producing actions deemed detrimental to the Macedonian people, language and country.

Popovska wants to see the Protocol annulled, in accordance with the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties, by which an annulment is enabled in a case that goes against the imperative norm of general international law.

"The Protocol violates the Constitution because it has not been ratified in the Parliament, and was not published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of North Macedonia within the constitutional deadline. In addition, it is claimed that it violates Articles 6, 16, 19, 20 and 26 of the Law on Conclusion, Ratification and Execution of International Agreements, since the procedure over its arrangement, adoption by the Government and its signing was not observed," reads the initiative.

The initiative notes that the Protocol is not a legal act confirmed by the Parliament but minutes from a meeting of the commission, adding that unlike the procedure implemented in North Macedonia, which it claims to lack transparency and is flawed, a parliament committee in Bulgaria discussed it on 23 June 2022, a month before the countries' foreign ministers signed the Protocol, followed by the adoption of the entire package from the French Proposal for the start of the accession negotiations with North Macedonia, including the Protocol, at a plenary session on 24 June 2022.

Photo: MIA