Skopje, 16 April 2025 (MIA) — Everyone has the right to realize their human potential regardless of their background and the Constitutional Court should do more to protect human rights and freedoms, President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova said Wednesday after attending a presentation by the Commission for Prevention and Protection Against Discrimination of its yearly report on discrimination in the country.

Siljanovska Davkova said discrimination should be sanctioned. She also said the applicable constitutional clause regarding human rights was the one pointing out that anything not prohibited by the Constitution and the laws was allowed.

"In our country," the president said, "this provision, instead of being used to protect human rights, has been used by officials forgetting that it was there not to serve them, but rather, to serve as protection against them."

"The most important thing is to become aware that before the Constitution and the law we are all equals," she said.

"There is one problem in the Constitution, the antidiscrimination clause, yes, which is subject to evaluation by the Constitutional Court," she said.

"But we have very few freedoms and rights — that is, the freedom of conscience, the freedom of thought and, interestingly, the freedom of political association and action — that make it possible to file such a lawsuit," she said, adding that in other countries, violations of all freedoms and rights were potential grounds for constitutional litigation.

Even so, she noted, previous Constitutional Courts "hardly ever acted" in such cases.

"I notice more activity in this Constitutional Court. I think this was brought about by several of my colleagues and the Constitutional Court president, and I expect it to be an active Constitutional Court," she said.

Human rights are inherent to all human beings, she said.

"Freedoms and rights are not a gift from the state nor do we draw them from the Constitution. Without them, we cannot realize our human potential," she said. mr/