The European Convention on Human Rights – The Protection of Human Rights under the ECHR in Central and South East Europe: North Macedonia

Absztrakt

Regulating human rights and their protection in North Macedonia’s legal system has an important historic dimension, accounting for the historic continuum of the constitutional and legal human rights framework in the country from 1946 to date. The Socialist Republic of Macedonia, as part of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), was a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) since 26 January 1965. Although the Macedonian legal system, from 1946 until the start of the democratic transition process in 1990-1991, was considered a part of the socialist systems, Macedonian citizens had constitutional, legal and institutional protection of human rights and freedoms. However, the formal existence of the legislation did not achieve the protection of human rights as a final goal. Hence, in this chapter, several key issues related to the protection of human rights in the Macedonian state will be analysed and elaborated, such as the contextual introduction of the historical development of human rights in the country, the relationship between the Macedonian state and the Council of Europe (CoE) from a human rights perspective, the CoE human rights conventions to which North Macedonia is a State Party, elaboration on the national implementation (the process and time of accession/succession /ratification) of the ECHR, how human rights protection obligations deriving from the ECHR are reflected in the constitution and/or other major acts of the country and the major law-making processes that took place in the country due to the ECHR. The chapter includes several landmark cases of North Macedonia before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), elaborated in detail.