Court backlogs, corruption, and stalled reforms that are a key to EU entry are eroding citizens’ trust in North Macedonia’s justice system.
When Ana’s former husband threatened her life, Ana turned to North Macedonia’s courts for help. But the grueling experience has left her with no sense of justice – and no faith in the system that was supposed to protect her.
“I could kill you. Just go ahead and complain,” Ana recalls her ex warning when the physical and mental abuse continued even after their divorce. She ignored the threats, and filed criminal abuse charges against him.
Nearly five years later, she still has no sense of security. Even in broad daylight, Ana instinctively quickens her pace when she leaves her home outside the capital, Skopje. She shared her experience on condition that only her first name be used, out of fear for her safety.
The divorce, which Ana saw as a way to free herself from a bad marriage, was not the new start she envisioned. Instead, it marked the beginning of an intensified campaign of abuse.
After their split, Ana’s ex-husband stalked her, threatened her, insulted her, and even physically attacked her. Yet despite the obvious dangers to her welfare, the courts allowed him to remain free as legal proceedings dragged on.
Ana describes an arduous legal journey marked by many postponed hearings, months waiting in vain, and years spent pacing court corridors.
“I waited six months for the case to be opened, and four years for a verdict,” she said.
Sentenced to Wait
Ana’s case is not isolated. It is part of the larger picture of North Macedonia’s justice system, which observers say is plagued by inefficiency, corruption, and slow-moving reforms. This not only contributes to falling public trust in the rule of law in the Western Balkan country, but presents a significant hurdle to its goal of joining the European Union, which is supported by 70 percent of the population.
Lejla Tutic, a legal researcher with the Skopje-based nonprofit coalition All for Fair Trials, says the number of hearings postponed beyond 30 days has increased by 150 percent over the last two decades – from 12 percent in 2004 to 30 percent in 2024.
“This creates legal uncertainty and often results in violations of the right to a trial within a reasonable time,” said Tutic, whose organization monitors court proceedings, advocates for judicial reform, and works to implement fair trial standards.
The situation poses a clear threat to abuse victims like Ana in a country where, in the first quarter of 2025 alone, women and children made up 86 percent of the 391 registered victims of gender-based and domestic violence.
But judicial inefficiency is a problem that does not discriminate.
The European Commission (EC) found in its latest Rule of Law report, which seeks to ensure high judicial standards among EU members and aspirants, that in North Macedonia’s case “the efficiency of the judiciary has overall declined as the length of proceedings increased for almost all case categories.”
The Council of Europe’s European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, meanwhile, ranked North Macedonia’s judiciary below the regional average in efficiency, case duration, and other factors that could inhibit speedy resolutions, such as in what part of the country courts operate.
Exhausting Process, Stalled Reforms
Yildiz Veaposka, a nurse from the western city of Debar, learned first-hand how drawn-out trials and procedures can harm lives.
After giving birth at a hospital in Struga, in North Macedonia’s southwest, Veaposka lost her uterus, an ovary, and a kidney due to medical negligence. What followed was a court process marked by years of delays before her surgeon was eventually found guilty of malpractice and sentenced to three years in prison.
“The legal process started only after I recovered and filed the complaint,” Veaposka said, stressing the toll the experience took on her family. “For four and a half years, we’ve been running from court to court. We are exhausted mentally and physically.”
Adding to the inefficiency is that thousands of cases are not going to trial. In 2024, 17,083 alleged criminal offenses were reported in the country of just over 2 million people, according to the country’s Ministry of Social Policy. Of those, charges were brought in just 7,199 cases, and 6,528 ended with a conviction.
And many cases are hampered or even lost in the shuffle, prompting efforts to improve digitization of case management and court statistics, which the EC says are slowed by outdated infrastructure.
For citizens like Ana and Yildiz Veaposka, this means years of waiting for a legal resolution – if they ever receive one.
Both describe the judiciary as a system caught in inefficiency, corruption, and lack of accountability. They each testify to an environment where “things only get done” if someone has connections or influence. And they were both ultimately left with the same feeling – that justice arrived late and was ultimately insufficient.
It’s a conclusion that appears to be widely shared among citizens of North Macedonia and outside observers alike.
The EC noted in its 2025 report that the country is continuing to implement its strategy for judicial reform launched in 2024 and slated to be completed by 2028.
But the EU’s executive body also said the effort has been bogged down by remaining concerns about transparency, juridical independence, and limited funding.
A serious shortage of judicial staff, including in the Supreme Court, is also contributing to the judiciary’s difficulties in resolving cases promptly and effectively.
The findings were in keeping with previous EC reports that said that reforms were largely a formality, while systemic weaknesses, particularly in the fight against corruption, persist.
Selective Accountability
The EC’s Rule of Law report paid particular attention to the government’s effort to dismiss Chief Prosecutor Ljubco Kocevski.
Legislators passed a no-confidence motion against Kocevski in June 2025, and the government launched procedures of dismissal against him in November on grounds that he had committed unspecified “gross professional errors” in the management of the Public Prosecutor’s Office that the government alleged disrupted the office’s efficiency and functionality. The government also accused Kocevski of unauthorized disclosures of data that violated the Constitution.
Kocevski, who denied the allegations, resigned in December, saying he had served honorably and that “justice must be greater than politics.”
The EC warned that the dismissal procedures against Kocevski “exposed shortcomings in the rules of dismissal and a risk of politicization” and that “interference and pressure from other state branches raise serious concerns about judicial independence.”
Kocevski’s resignation was widely viewed as linked to Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski’s calls to replace both the chief prosecutor and several members of the Judicial Council, an elected body that oversees the work of judges. Mickoski earlier in the year had claimed that five members of the Judicial Council were unfit to serve, and suggested he would encourage street protests calling for them to resign.
All of the targeted members fulfilled their terms before leaving their positions. But the situation underscored the turbulent atmosphere affecting the body.
Former Judicial Council President Vesna Dameva was driven to speak publicly about political pressures on the judiciary, before she resigned in 2024. Her predecessor, Pavlina Crvenkovska, left under similar circumstances. In all, three presidents of the Judicial Council resigned in the course of three years.
Supreme Court Judge Vera Kotso has said that without personal integrity and professional credibility among judges, reforms will not succeed. Vlado Kambovski, former professor of criminal law and president of the Commission for Judicial Reforms, has emphasized that independence and credibility are key prerequisites for the judiciary to function as a true corrective authority.
The council has dismissed at least 22 judges for unprofessional and negligent work in just over a decade, but the number of final convictions for corruption among judges is significantly smaller. The Balkan Insight Reporting Network in 2024 analyzed six such verdicts.
They include a Supreme Court judge who in 2024 was removed from office and sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty of corruption. The verdict, which could have resulted in a 10-year sentence, prompted criticism from a Judicial Council member who said corrupt judges needed to be given harsher punishments.
In another instance, a judge in Ohrid received a suspended sentence for accepting a 10,000-denar bribe (about 160 euros). Some accused judges reached settlements with the prosecution or had their verdicts annulled. One served a sentence for abusing AKMIS, the country’s automated case management system.
Such cases all appear to reinforce the perception of selective justice.
When Justice Fails at Home
Another telling indication of the failures of North Macedonia’s justice system is the number of those looking to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for help.
The most common grounds for applications by North Macedonian citizens are trial within an unreasonable time, unfair trial proceedings, ineffective investigation, and violation of the right to property. The ECHR has repeatedly identified structural problems in the judiciary.
Ironically, judges seek justice at the ECHR, too.
The Strasbourg court recently ruled that three judges’ right to an effective legal remedy had been violated during their dismissal.
Darko Kostadinovski, president of the Constitutional Court, said in comments to Transitions that North Macedonia is one of the few European countries without a constitutional complaint mechanism.
“With the introduction of a constitutional complaint, an internal mechanism for rights protection would be created, so citizens would not immediately have to go to Strasbourg,” he said.
Deputy Justice Minister Alen Dereban, commenting on the Justice Ministry’s proposed package of 20 key laws – which aim for alignment with EU directives on criminal procedures – said current problems with the judiciary cannot be written off as the result of “bad laws.”
“We have a problem with their implementation,” Dereban said. “No matter how perfect the legal solution that we will adopt is, if we do not have implementation and respect for those laws, we have a problem. The implementation of laws in practice and respect is much more important.”
A Cycle of Abuse
Ana believes her former husband’s strong connections to judicial circles contributed to her ordeal. She alleges that he and his family had close friends in the court, and that they deliberately prolonged proceedings in an effort to get her to drop the charges.
He was eventually found guilty of criminal abuse, but the system has failed to stop her abuser. He continues to terrify her, and make threats directed at the children and her mother, she says.
“I live in constant fear. I don’t know where he could appear or what he could do. I worry about my children,” she said in a trembling voice.
North Macedonia may be adopting strategies, adopting laws, and announcing reforms to its judicial system. But for Ana, progress is not measured by new legislation or reports from Brussels – it is measured by whether she can walk peacefully down the street.
Natasha Grkova-Petrushevska is a journalist, editor, presenter, and media researcher with 25 years’ experience at the national public broadcaster in North Macedonia.
