Besa against Zaev’s draft law on State Prosecution: We will not vote for the law as presented

The law on State Prosecutor’s Office proposed by Prime Minister Zoran Zaev on Friday is entering parliamentary procedure today. The Government will try to provide the necessary two-thirds majority to push through the changes that will make the SPO part of the newly established Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime and High Corruption with jurisdiction over the entire territory of the country and guarantees of independent action corresponding to the current position, and yet is in the hierarchy and subordination of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. To this end, a compromise is first required with VMRO-DPMNE, from which they say they only agree to the SPO becoming part of the regular Prosecutor’s Office, while Vilma Ruskovska’s election as the new head of the department, her enormous power envisaged by the law, as well as the possibility to continue the investigations of the SPO opened after the legal deadline of 30 June 2017, are absolutely unacceptable.

The ruling parties currently do not have the required 80 MPs, although, if they fail to reach agreement, they will try to apply the same principle as in the vote on the name change.

The eight independent MPs who then raised the vote for the Prespa Agreement are now tactful and say that they have not yet read Zaev’s draft law.

The Alliance for Albanians says it is acceptable to them only if a person appointed by the European Union comes to the head of the new prosecutor’s office.

Besa said that he will not vote for the proposed law on state prosecutors, which was unilaterally presented by Prime Minister Zoran Zaev on Friday, after he failed to find common ground with the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party and amid the major corruption scandal involving the Special Prosecutor’s Office.

This new proposal will bury the SPO. For us it is unacceptable that there will be no new cases based on the wiretaps the SPO holds. If this is not changed, we will not vote for the proposal, officials from BESA told Nezavisen vesnik. Zaev’s draft law provides that the wiretaps which are not currently being used in cases brought forward by Katica Janeva will be destroyed, meaning that evidence about crimes possibly perpetrated by his SDSM party, or his Albanian coalition partner DUI, would be gone.