Returned ECHR shortlist sparks clash between selection commission and a contender

The Commission charged with selecting North Macedonia's candidate for a judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg has publicly pushed back after a participant in the selection process criticised the repeated returns of the three-name shortlist to the Commission.

Commission declines to debate candidates' public remarks but signals reproach

In a written response issued after the criticism reached the Commission, the body said it will not comment on statements by candidates who applied and participated in the procedure. At the same time, the reply — which did not name the individual who made the remarks — contains language that makes clear the target is a former Constitutional Court judge and ex-director of the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors, Natasha Gaber-Damjanovska.

Gaber-Damjanovska posted on Facebook: "For the list to be returned so many times means the Commission has not completed its work properly, according to the Advisory Panel's Guidance. Shame".

The Commission's reply lays out several points: "First, it is not at all unusual practice for the Expert Panel in the procedure for the selection of judges to have remarks on the proposed candidates, and in that sense the Expert Panel in its practice has a record of returning entire lists or certain candidates from those lists.

Second, the Expert Panel in the report on the submitted list had no remarks on the work and procedures of the Commission for the Selection of Candidates for a Judge of the Republic of North Macedonia to the ECHR.

Finally, and despite its principled stance, the Commission nevertheless considers it unacceptable for a candidate who is dissatisfied with the work of the Commission to qualify its work in an unworthy manner. In that sense, if the Commission were to reply in the same way, the response would be that that candidate would be better to confront the shame for his work, which is noted in a report of the State Audit Office, rather than to give inappropriate qualifications for the work of the Commission."

The dispute follows the Advisory Panel of international experts finding that the initially proposed candidate Ana Dangova-Hug did not fully meet the criteria for a judge at the ECHR. Following that assessment, and after notification from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade, the Commission proposed lawyer Jelena Ristic as a replacement; the Commission says the decision to nominate Ristic was taken unanimously at its session on 20 August, a move later confirmed on television by the Commission's chair, Constitutional Court president Darko Kostadinovski.

The selection process has stretched over roughly a year and a half and has been repeatedly interrupted. Earlier stages saw a different nine-member commission propose candidates whose list the government annulled on 22 July last year and then reconstituted the body as a five-member commission chaired by the Constitutional Court president. Several proposed candidates — and later replacements, including Jordan Apostolski and Ana Dangova-Hug — were assessed as not meeting the required criteria by the international panel.

Gaber-Damjanovska, who reached the final of the 2016 selection and was once the commission's top pick before the parliamentary assembly plenary chose Jovan Ilievski amid controversy then, served as director of the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors until she submitted her irrevocable resignation in July 2024. The Academy was singled out in the 2024 report of the State Audit Office for shortcomings relating to some allowance payments, procurement procedures and control of public spending. In October 2024 the Academy's board appointed prosecutor Irina Trajkoska-Strezoski as director.

Until a new judge is elected, the ECHR seat remains occupied by Jovan Ilievski, who was appointed earlier in a period that coincided with the tenure of his relative Sasho Mijalkov as head of the former Security and Counterintelligence Service (UBK).

Photo: EPA-EFE/RONALD WITTEK