What is a “state secret” and who can know it?

“The person Z.Z. presented details of the donation contract which is classified with the highest degree of confidentiality, i.e. “state secret”, thus directly endangering the security of the Republic of Macedonia”.
This is how MOI informed that it has start working on new criminal charges against Zoran Zaev, that, as read in the statement, refers to the crime disclosing state secrets in connection with the recordings that leader of the opposition announced at a press conference.
In our legislation, state secret is “data of the institutions that were declared to be secret out of justifiable reasons.”
It can be data concerning the territorial integrity and sovereignty, protection of the constitutional order, human and minority rights and freedoms, national and public security, external and internal affairs, as well as foreign secret data (those which our country entrusted to a foreign country or international organization).
All these data are sensitive and their disclosure would inflict damage on the work of an institution or the interests of the state, provided that the interests of the state are above the interests of free access to information.
The crime for which SDSM leader Zoran Zaev is accused is provided and punishable under Article 317 of the Criminal Code – “Disclosing a state secret.” For this crime, the law projects imprisonment for a period of up to 10 years.
Namely, paragraph 1 of Article 317 provides:
Everyone who would tell, announce or make available a state secret entrusted to him to the public or to an unauthorized person shall be punished with imprisonment of one to ten years.
Paragraph 2 provides:
Everyone who would tell, announce or make available records or documents that he knows are state secret, and which he acquired in an unlawful manner to the public or to an unauthorized person shall be punished with imprisonment of one to five years.
If, however, the offender was subject to manipulation or carried out the crime by negligence, in accordance with the law, shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to five years.
According to the Law on Classified Information, Article 8:
Classified information with level “state secret” is information which unauthorized disclosure would jeopardize and cause irreparable damage to the vital interests of the Republic of Macedonia.
There are four levels of classification: internal, confidential, highly confidential and state secret.
People that can know classified information with level “state secret” include:
• President of the Republic of Macedonia,
• Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia,
• President of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia,
• President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Macedonia,
• President of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Macedonia,
• Ministers within their portfolios,
• Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Macedonia,
• Chief of Staff of the Army of Republic of Macedonia,
• Director of Counter-Intelligence Agency,
• Director of the Directorate for Security of Classified Information, as well as authorized persons with their written consent.
Everyone who can have contact with a state secret must have a security certificate.
There are two types of security certificates that are issued by the Directorate for Security of Classified Information, and those are: security certificate for individual and security certificate for a legal entity. Security certificates can be issued for handling national, NATO or EU classified information. Directorate for Security of Classified Information issued national security certificates to the highest level “state secret”. Concerning NATO and EU classified information, the Directorate issued security certificates to the extent “strictly confidential”, given the signed agreements on a bilateral basis between the Republic of Macedonia and NATO, i.e. the Republic of Macedonia and the EU.