Waiting for…

Zvonko Davidovic

Endless prairie, the wind blowing on the dry grass, and on the hill an Indian standing as a marble statue with eyes pointed to the sky and praying silently to his god. He is waiting for rain. Perhaps days have passed in such a lethargic wait, but the Indian welcomed the rain, his prayers were answered and the result was inevitable and reliable. The rain soaked the dry land.

Humans have probably always spent part of their lives waiting for someone or something with their eyes locked at the horizon or the future. I’m sure that, while looking at the horizon, our ancestors realized and learned many things about themselves and the world around them. Looking into the future, they planned and developed over the millennia, creating a more compassionate, a more humane society.

Thinking about all of this and looking at our past, I think that we Macedonians are record-holders in waiting for things to happen. I think that we spend much more time in our lives waiting than any people on planet Earth, in the past or present.

The Ilinden Uprising and all other uprisings, the Balkan Wars and the First World War did not deliver any result to the centuries-old Macedonian waiting and aspiration for their own state and the right to be on their own. Instead of unifying the people, there was a split, division and assimilation of the Macedonian people. With a glance towards the sky and the future, the Macedonian people are waiting for a better time for the centuries-old aspirations. And, that time comes as always in a storm, in the smoke of the villages and the cities that who knows how many times have burned through the centuries, it comes in the hard step of the occupiers’ boots. This centuries-old desire and waiting has been soaked in the blood of the Macedonian people as many times before, but this time the Macedonian state was born from the ashes of World War II, and the contours and the future were created by the decisions of ASNOM.

Eighty-eight years of waiting after the Ilinden Uprising was rewarded with an independent and sovereign Republic of Macedonia. But our waiting has yet to begin. As soon as we became independent, our problems with the neighbors began. One contested the name and, while we were waiting on their borders to go to the beach or shopping, they put stickers on our cars saying that they did not recognize us under our constitutional name. The second however, contested our language and origin, while the third contested our minds. But most of all we ourselves have disputed our own origin and history by giving them the opportunity and material to dispute both the name and the language, and our minds. We have waited for 27 years for resolving the name dispute, we negotiated, we reached deals, we held a referendum and we are still waiting for the settlement of the dispute.

After declaring independence, we were the only country in the Balkans that met the conditions and criteria for joining the European Union. But, as always, when we are stepping toward the goal, we are at the farthest distance from it. Suddenly the refugee crisis occurred and Macedonia was flooded with refugees from Kosovo who later, as a gratitude for our hospitality, carried out terrorist actions on our territory under the name UCK. Then the military conflict in our country took place, the Ohrid Agreement was reached, and we were getting further and further away from the accession to NATO and the EU. After the Prespa agreement, the referendum conducted and the division of parliamentary parties on this issue, without a two-thirds majority, we continue to wait, as we have in the past years, to resolve this issue.

We waited and we are still waiting for many things to happen, but most of all we waited, and as it seems, we will continue to wait for the legal system to settle, for the court stand on its feet, and for the law that is equal for all, for justice that is attainable for everyone, and for everyone to take responsibility for their actions. Many reforms were made in this waiting for the autonomy and independence of the judiciary, and for the purpose of creating better conditions for that much desired judicial autonomy and independence. Because of all this, and especially because of the security of the judges and the separation of powers, the judicial council was created. That body should have been a guarantor of the independence and autonomy of the judiciary, but instead it generated and created problems, scams and opened the judiciary for the political influence of the executive power. Instead of a master, it became a servant who was the only one that did not have any responsibility before anyone. Neither the permanent judicial mandate did not improve the situation, on the contrary, the judiciary was sinking more and more each day, and from a respectable one, the judiciary turned into the Swarovski-Sunflower judiciary. Due to the inability of the courts and their executive departments to carry out their decisions, the enforcement agents were invented and appointed. The courts failed to process legal proceedings, verification and payment orders in a timely manner, so they also invented the notaries who took almost the entire out-of-court procedure. Neither this dismantled judiciary is functioning, and another segment of the court’s jurisdiction is handed over to another body, the investigation from the court offices has passed to the prosecution. We thought that they were under-educated in college and the bar exam, so we invented the Academy for Judges and Prosecutors, as an opportunity for them to learn a little more. The situation only turned worse, and the staff who applied to the Academy instead of teaching what’s right or wrong, began to engage in forging degrees and certificates of foreign language skills. The staff, who sat in the court armchairs from the academy, sent legal persons to prison. They started to keep the ACMIS system at their own discretion, just like they made their decisions by orders.

The prosecution, in turn, was a sleeping beauty who neither hears nor sees, instead just waits for the executive power to tell it what to do. Public prosecutors at the head of the republican prosecution for their entire mandate failed to settle the prosecution and do the work they were elected to do, instead they just sat in their armchairs, fell into hibernation from which only a political order could wake them up, for a case against a political opponent which was regularly and quality delivered. Due to the incompetence and non-functioning of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Law and the JORM, the SPO was created. But even the SPO failed to change the entrenched prosecution-court flattery and double standards, despite bravely and persistently struggling, because none of the heads of courts and prosecutors took responsibility. They are still sitting where they should not and cannot be, and we are still waiting for justice, equity, equality, peace and quiet.

Unlike the Indian at the beginning of the column, who finally got the rain he prayed for, I am not sure if and when we will see justice and responsibility for everyone in the society, no matter who and where they are.