Ivanovska: PPO is Still Working under Political Pressure

The President of the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption (SCPC) Biljana Ivanovska believes that the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PPO) is still working under political pressure and cited two main reasons for that. “The first reason is the fact that for some cases we are yet to receive response from PPO, while the second one is the fact that for other cases we are getting responses from PPO extremely fast, as if there are different political orders for different types of cases. I think this institutions still has a lot to work on. SCPC already announced that in 2020 we shall take insight in the property assets of all people in the judicial system of North Macedonia. Judges and public prosecutors must be more responsive and deliver to SCPC asset declarations whenever they are appointed at a certain position, removed from it or whenever any change in their position is made. We also need a more active approach from other institutions, like for example the Finance Police, because once we determine there are grounded suspicions for opening cases, we notify these institutions first,” Ivanovska said. From PPO they reacted to Ivanovska’s statements. “We deny the claims for alleged political pressures over PPO by SCPC President Ivanovska. PPO takes all legal measures for determination of facts in all cases, including those formed by SCPC. The time for finalisation of certain cases depends on their complexity, hence certain cases take more time than others. PPO is an independent state institution, and we call on SCPC president Ivanovska to stick to the authorisations assigned to her in accordance with the Law on SCPC and to refrain form statements which violate the independence of PPO,” writes the reaction of PPO.