Telma has said that there are new mysteries and suspicions when it comes to the decision-making by the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption (SCPC) in the case concerning Agency for National Security Director Bojan Hristovski. The case wasn’t opened as a corruption one, but rather as a conflict of interest one.
In that form, it reached the hands of SCPC member Cveta Ristovska, who had previously taught at the Faculty of Economics of Skopje University When it opens cases on the basis of petitions, reports or rumour, the SCPC divides cases into three clusters: corruption, conflict of interest, or declaration of assets. Cases in which degrees, certificates, meeting of criteria for a position had been previously considered as corruption ones, but in the Hristovski matter, in which there was a similar petition, the documents were placed in the cluster concerning conflict of interest.
Another suspicion is that the SCPC’s decision was signed by its President, Tatjana Dimitrovska, and Ristovska, as the one who’d approved the decision. There’s been no information about who approved and controlled the document. The same session saw other decisions by Ristovska, but they include, as foreseen, three signatures, not just one, as in the Hristovski matter.
The decision doesn’t include an explanatory note as to why a unique decision-making model had been chosen. The greatest mystery is related to the Market Inspectorate.
According to the document, the SCPC requested inspection over the Hristovski degree on 6 December and got the report two weeks after that, on 20 December. However, the inspection had already been “ordered” and conducted the previous day, according to the SCPC’s decision, which says that that took place on 5 December, that is, a day before the body had requested inspection at all.
The decision doesn’t refer to Ristovska’s request that she be recused either, even though, the Rules of Procedure say that request has to be part of the papers.