President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski this afternoon notified the President of the Parliament, Talat Xhaferi that he decided to not sign the Decree promulgating the law for legalizing the illegally constructed buildings.
Pendarovski said that this decision was made on the basis of a detailed analysis of the Law’s content, when he determined it is contrary to some of the Constitution’s fundamental values.
President Pendarovski considers that the Law’s content doesn’t have a social justification i.e. it is not protecting and promoting the public interest, which is the basic task of every institution of public government.
Pendarovski said that the stimulation for disobeying the legal regulations is causing permanent damage to all of country’s efforts to build a democratic state based on rule of law and respect of people’s rights and freedoms.
“I’m convinced that the adopted Law is not onlys putting the citizens in an unequal position, by giving privilege to those who didn’t obey legal regulations to the detriment of law-abiding citizens, who were acting in accordance with current regulations when they were building, but even more, it stimulates disobedience to legal regulations,” considers President Pendarovski.
With such formulated legal decision, a breach is being made into the courts’ work and it allows a hidden pardon for perpetrators of felonies related to illegal construction of buildings and abuse of office,” said Pendarovski.
Pendarovski stressed that Article 17 of this Law gives an opportunity to legalize illegally constructed buildings even in “nature reserves, national parks, monuments of nature, protected areas, nature parks, protected coastlines of natural and artificial lakes and riverbeds, including first and second sanitary protected areas that are sources of drinking water,”
This possibility said the president, is a violation of the country’s basic obligation to protect the environment, and additionally, the possibility of legalizing illegally constructed buildings in protective areas of drinking water is potentially jeopardizing the public health for which protection the country is also legally obliged.
“The possibility with the previously stated Article, for legalization of illegally constructed buildings in an area of protected immovable cultural heritage (single cultural property or as a whole or archeological locations) is a violation of the country’s legal obligation to protect cultural properties and cultural heritage,” wrote Pendarovski.
There were major reactions by the general public and a large number of associations, citizens, experts demanded from Pendarovski not to sign the Decree.
