Macedonian journalists to seek justice in Strasbourg

Last April, the country's Constitutional Court declared that the journalists had been ejected for their own safety amid tensions in the plenary hall, so it did not find the case as constituting a violation of the right to freedom of expression.

"It is scandalous that the Constitutional Court did not find an obvious violation of the Article 16 of the Constitution, which forbids censorship and guarantees freedom of expression and free access to the public information," the AJM said in a statement on June 5th, announcing its plans to seek justice at the ECHR in Strasbourg, along with concerned journalists.

The incident in question occurred on December 24th, 2012, as lawmakers were about to adopt the country's 2013 budget amid rising tensions inside the plenary hall. The parliamentary security staff's forced out the media from their spot in the gallery and did not allow the journalists to do their job and cover the event.

"But the real intention was that they [security] didn't want journalists to witness how they kick a member of the opposition out of the session" and the intention was clearly to prevent this move from being filmed by the media, AJM President Naser Selmani told OBC on June 10th. "The opposition member of the parliament accused the government of adopting improper ways for endorsing the budget approval, the expulsion is simply how they stopped him ".

The AJM voiced concern in its statement that, with its decision, the Constitutional Court, as the most important guardian of citizens' rights and freedoms, was sending an "extremely dangerous message to all": that Article 16 "is only a declarative law".

"By this, the Constitutional Court defends an obvious abuse of the legislative and executive power, and encourages institutions to limit the right to freedom of expression and freedom of media even more drastically in the future," the Association stressed. "Such behavior of the Constitutional Court will further deteriorate the poor image of Macedonia as a country with partial freedom of expression."

The AJM hopes that the ECHR will judge the December 2012 incident to constitute a violation of the right of freedom of expression and information. It also believed that the expulsion of the journalists on the basis of the safety assessment of the parliamentary security contradicted the law, which requires a two-thirds majority for closing the parliamentary session.