The Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) will not vote on amendments to the Law on Criminal Procedure (LCP) if a political consensus between the major political parties is not reached. This was announced by the Vice-President of Parliament Rafiz Aliti, therefore reducing the chances of these amendments being voted in Parliament before its dissolution. The DUI party said that if the amendments to the LCP (Law on Criminal Procedure) did not get support from the opposition, they will not support the proposed changes.
One of the proponents of these changes, however, was DUI MP, Musa Ibraimi together with VMRO-DPMNE MP, Svetlana Jakimovska.
For the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code to pass, 82 votes from MPs are needed, which is very difficult to achieve if MPs from the DUI do not vote.
The SDSM parliamentary group is against the proposal to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure, because they believe the changes are being made after the Special Public Prosecution has opened several of cases where senior officials from the VMRO-DPMNE party are involved.
The amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, which were suggested to be conducted by fast tracking the procedure, are for the deadline for submitting evidence to be increased from 15 days to 90 days. This means that before submitting an indictment, the public prosecutor is obliged to inform the suspect of actions undertaken by the investigation and the collection of evidence, and that the defense instead of 15 days will have 90 days to take action.
Yesterday the US Embassy in Macedonia said it was surprised by the initiative of the VMRO-DPMNE and the DUI on amendments to the Law on Criminal Procedure. The Embassy stated on “Twitter”:
US has assisted #Macedonia with Criminal Procedure Code for years; Working Group has many recommendations. 1/2
— U.S. Embassy North Macedonia (@USEmbassySkopje) March 30, 2016
Thus surprised by proposed amendments: why now, why the rush, why only these changes? #QuestionoftheDay 2/2
— U.S. Embassy North Macedonia (@USEmbassySkopje) March 30, 2016
