Constitutional Court to review eight initiatives, including mandatory mediation for disputes up to 1,000,000 denars

The Constitutional Court will hold its 24th session today to consider eight initiatives challenging the constitutionality or legality of various laws and regulations, and one draft-decision. The agenda includes disputes that touch on civil procedure, criminal law, child protection, the bar register, free legal aid and insurance supervision.

Key items on the agenda

One of the most prominent challenges targets Article 461 of the Law on Civil Procedure — the provision that establishes mandatory mediation as a procedural condition for bringing and conducting proceedings when the parties are legal entities and the disputed value does not exceed 1,000,000 denars. The initiative was submitted by lawyer Goran Nikolovski, who argues that introducing mandatory mediation as a precondition to access the courts is an unjustified restriction on legal certainty and predictability because it creates an additional, by law disproportionately imposed obstacle to obtaining judicial protection.

Another initiative, lodged by Slavko Dimitrov, challenges Article 157 paragraph 8 of the Criminal Code. The petitioner claims that the contested provision violates the personal nature of moral copyright guaranteed by Article 47 of the Constitution and restricts the author's right to autonomy and dignity.

The Court will also examine two separate initiatives related to provisions of the Law on Child Protection. Klimentina Angeleska disputes parts of the law that regulate rights linked to the first, second and third newborn child, asserting that those provisions are discriminatory.

Other items include an initiative by Oliver Davidovski against Article 12 paragraph 1 subparagraph 9 of the Law on Advocacy, which challenges a requirement for entry in the Register of Lawyers tied to prior termination of a function or employment by a final decision establishing ""responsibility"" — the petitioner argues the concept of ""responsibility"" is not defined with sufficient clarity. Davidovski is also the author of an initiative contesting Article 34-v paragraph 9 of the Law on Free Legal Aid, which questions the Ministry's authority to refuse payment to an expert if it finds that the expert failed to fulfil statutory obligations, since the norm does not allow advance predictability of what will be considered non-fulfilment.

Additional initiatives include one by Zharko Hadzhi-Zafirov against acts of the Insurance Supervision Agency related to insurance-brokerage activities, alleging that the Agency imposed obligations on all insurance-brokerage companies that are not provided for by law and thus conflict with the Law on Insurance Supervision and the Constitution; and one by Skender Redzepi concerning the Rulebook on the manner, form and content of pedagogical records and documentation in secondary schools.

The eighth initiative, also submitted by Slavko Dimitrov, challenges item 103 of a Government conclusion adopted on 4 February 2020. The petitioner contends that the contested measure suspended application of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights in a way that limited the statutory competence of the Ministry of Culture and amounted to interference with administrative powers and a breach of the separation of powers principle.

Separately, the Court will decide on a draft-decision in case U.no.47/2026. This is the procedure that the Court opened on 8 July 2026 to review the constitutionality of Article 60 paragraph 2 of the Law on Social Protection in the part "who is unemployed and does not use the right to a pension, after reaching 60 years of age for a woman, or 62 years of age for a man."

Photo: press material from the event