Skopje, 26 March 2025 (MIA) – The session of the Council of Public Prosecutors, set to review the Government’s motion for dismissal of the Chief Prosecutor of North Macedonia, has been postponed on Wednesday.

As announced by the President of the Council of Public Prosecutors, Dushica Dimitrieska, the session has been postponed due to the absence of three members, resulting in a lack of quorum. The public will be updated on any further developments.

The motion to dismiss Chief Prosecutor Ljupcho Kocevski is the second item on the agenda for the 22nd session, which was first scheduled for March 18, but postponed by the Council due to a seven-day mourning period declared for the victims in the Kochani nightclub fire.

The deadlines for reviewing the motion for Kocevski's dismissal are still ongoing, and the Council will need to consider the motion by next week at the latest.

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said Tuesday that the procedure for the dismissal of Chief Prosecutor Ljupcho Kocevski will be stopped at its current stage.

“Given the sensitive situation in society, we plan to stop the procedure at its current stage, as we believe the prosecutors working on the Kochani nightclub fire case should be allowed to continue and complete their work. When I said that we are satisfied, I could see that there was a coordinated effort between the Ministry of Interior and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, leading to 34 people detained who are under suspicion of having any connection to this case,” Mickoski said.

On February 11, 2025, the Government decided to initiate procedures for the dismissal of Chief Prosecutor Kocevski. The Chief Prosecutor's term is six years, with Kocevski elected to the post in February 2024. In accordance with the Government’s conclusion, the Ministry of Justice took action and prepared an opinion regarding the proposed dismissal of the Chief Public Prosecutor.

The Ministry of Justice said that the Chief Prosecutor of the Republic of North Macedonia acted in cases where legal provisions indicated circumstances that would raise doubts about his impartiality and conflict of interest, circumstances he should have known about and should have excluded himself from. Chief Prosecutor Kocevski denied the claim that the acted unlawfully, stating that he adhered to the law and its deadlines.

Photo: MIA archive