Macedonia Starts Lustration of Judges

Starting Monday, Macedonian judges, attorneys and prosecutors have until 25 February to submit certified written statements confirming that they had no ties with the secret services of the past.

The move is part of a nation wide lustration process that prohibits former collaborators and informants that worked for the secret services of the former Yugoslavia and early Macedonian state in the years from 1944 to 2008, from holding public office.

Judges working in the Supreme Court, appellate courts, administrative court and lower ranking courts, members of the Judicial Council, public prosecutors and members of the Council of Public Prosecutors will submit statements to the Lustration Commission.

The Ombudsman, his deputies and civil servants engaged in this institution, as well as the Public Prosecutor, his deputies and officials are also obliged to do the same.

Some 60 senior state officials including the Head of State, Parliament Speaker, Prime Minister and government ministers have passed the lustration successfully, a parliamentary commission set up to verify the facts said earlier in a press release.

The members of the commission completed their own lustration last October.

The Law on Lustration was adopted in 2008, but the commission only began its work last year.

Macedonia is following in the steps of many former communist and socialist states, which have already enacted similar laws in order to address past injustices stemming from politically motivated judicial proceedings.

Observers envisage that the lustration process will take approximately ten years to implement.