Announcement, 15/11/2018

With the escape of the convict and seeker of political asylum in Hungary, Nikola Gruevski, Macedonia experienced a heavy blow with far-reaching consequences. With this, all the weaknesses of the institutions and political structures have surfaced, which directly undermines the legal state and the rule of law. This scandal speaks of the failure to consistently implement the serious reforms in the area of judiciary, police, state commissions and agencies, that is, the exercise of power as a whole.

Political bargaining has received advantage over the need to decisively deal with the political and criminal underground in the country through the rule of law and transparency. That led to the escape of a high profile convict and his request for political asylum in an EU member country. That represents complete belittling of the processes for democratic transformation in the country in which precisely this refugee fleeing from the law carried out serious crimes and captured the state with his regime.

CIVIL – Center for Freedom outlines the fact that the public has the right to know which institutions, officials and other structures are involved in this scandal.

The public has the right to demand responsibility and measures that will guarantee that such a thing will not happen in the future.

CIVIL supports the reactions of the civil society organizations and joins the demands for an urgent, deep and transparent investigation of all the aspects of this scandal, starting from the institutions not being up-to-date, primarily the prosecution and the court, and certainly the police, and up to other factors that have contributed to such a serious scandal to break out.

Literally every question has to be answered. The citizens of Republic of Macedonia deserve that.

The citizens of Republic of Macedonia deserve to receive public and final guarantees that the reforms will speed up, as well as the strengthening, depoliticization and transparency of the institutions in the spirit of the rule of law and respect for human rights and freedoms.

CIVIL appeals to the Hungarian government to reject Nikola Gruevski’s request for political asylum and to extradite him back to Macedonia with the quickest possible procedure, which we know exists.

If the Hungarian government continues its hospitality towards Gruevski, it will mean that it is automatically declaring Macedonia an undemocratic country in which there is political prosecution, and not a legal process. The very hospitality for a refugee running away from justice is an extremely unacceptable act of disqualifying our country and the efforts for establishing democracy and the rule of law.