INTERVIEW: Suad Misini, Civic Society Information Center  Strategic objective: we should not go to Strasbourg for achieving our human rights    About the way of achieving human rights in Macedonia, about not understanding the essence of the human rights, about the long way which is to be passed in order to realize the rights which we legally have, about the battles of all “Jernej Servants” from these areas and times, we have talked to the executive manager of the Civic Society Information Center Marijana Ivanova  The Civic Society Informatiion Center is one of the few non-governmental organizations in Macedonia dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights. In the month which contains the international date dedicated to human rights, we talked to the executive manager of the Center, Mr. Suad Misini – about the way of achieving human rights in Macedonia, about the long way which is to be passed in order to achieve the rights which we legally have, about the cooperation with the European Court for Human Rights, with the Ombudsman, about why the Center (with a special motive) did not take part in celebrating the Human Rights Day(10 December), about the battles of all “Jernej servants” from these areas and times...   C.W. – Why did not the Civic Society Information Center have activities to celebrate the Human Rights Day? S.M. – Well, in regard of the previous years, it was exactly our main objective – to do nothing on the Day of Human Rights. In our country everyone talks gladly about the human rights, but almost no one ever works on their promotion, almost no one even understands what it means. Human rights are used as a phrase when someone needs it – the freshest example is the recent VMRO press conference where they expressed their discontent because prison conditions for one of their members, who has been taken into custody, are not good. They had four years to improve the conditions in prison! The same happened with the previous government, too, when SDSM was an opposition, and now the story is the same. Human rights are differently felt and differently understood and most often they are not even understood. When you talk about human rights, most of the people think you talk about Albanians, minorities, about...and there is not understanding and knowledge, and most often not even a will for the essence of the problem.   C.W. – What do you, as a civic organization, do to overcome this situation of not understanding and how do you act to protect and promote human rights? S.M. – The Human Rights Sector is the main pillar of acting in the Civic Society Information Center. In this sector we work on three segments: first is education and training on human rights and at the same time our target groups are from high-school students to lawyers and judges. The second segment is lobbying and representing and the third – direct protection, which comprises free legal help given to the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, as well as to people who want asylum, refugees or demanders of a citizenship status – victims of the processes of dissolution and succession in this area. We help the citizens in cases of flagrant breaking the human rights by the state institutions, that is in cases of torture, exceeding their authorizations, unfair legal procedure etc. Our activity in all these three segments has also an international dimension and here, we also work on three segments: the first one is the Council of Europe and its institutions and conventions, with a special cooperation with the European Court for Human Rights. Then, our Center is an implementation partner to UNHCHR (the United Nations High Commissariat for Human Rights) – this UN body has a five-year agreement for technical cooperation with the Republic of Macedonia and two of the dimensions of that cooperation should be implemented by us. The third segment of the international dimension is the cooperation with UNHCR (United Nations High Commissariat for Refugees). In relation to the last, we are a coordination agency of the national network consisting of seven NGOs who give free legal help to refugees, asylums and demanders of a citizenship status.   C.W. – How are the human rights in Macedonia achieved – on paper and in practice? S.M. – Well, the issue of the human rights in Macedonia can be observed from two aspects. From aspect of an administrative and legal procedure, the condition is not too bad. Our legal acts, which regulate this issue are not perfect, but relatively good. However, there is big discrepancy in relation to implementing the legal regulation into practice. In practice, human rights clash with various violations, inconsistencies, with all the problems of the judicial system - from its dependency and busyness, to corruption. Even before it comes to the judicial system, they clash with the prosecutor’s office, which rarely initiates procedures in the line of duty. An essential problem is that our judicial system is not what it should be, that in certain cases the police are too violent – it is a police inherited practice and the most efficient way for getting confessions from the accused. And most often there is not a judicial or some other outcome for this. Recently there has been a case about a child who works on the streets – he cleans -windscreens at the traffic lights and has been accused of stealing and thrashed by the police, but the competent organs have not reacted on this.   C.W. – Does your center represent cases like this, similar or different ones and what is the result? S.M. – Yes, we represent cases like this one, but in front of the domestic judicial system it does not have any meaningful outcomes and the procedures can be prolonged for years. However, when the phase of procedure in front of the domestic courts has finished, if necessary, we initiate another phase - in front of the international courts. In this cases the results are much bigger. We have had several cases of expelling people and we have intervened in front of the European Court in Strasbourg and they have resulted in a positive outcome. In the law there is a norm that the people who want asylum or another kind of protection must not be returned to their native country if their security or life are insecure there – in relation to this, the Macedonian country some time ago wanted to return a group of refugees back to Kosovo, although there was a danger for their security. We intervened through the Court in Strasbourg, the court decision was changed on a national level and people were not expelled. We closely cooperate with Mrs. Margarita Caca – Nikolovska, a judge in the European Court for Human Rights, who has also been an educator of the last series of our seminars for practical application of the European Convention for Human Rights. In our center we have an extraordinary expert on the European Convention for Human Rights – Mr. Zoran Gavriloski, who is one of the greatest experts in Macedonia in this field. We closely cooperate with the Council of Europe Committee Against Torture, as well as with the UN special reporter on torture. They process all the cases of torture.   C.W. – Do you cooperate with the domestic institutions which “fight” at the same front, for example, with the Ombudsman? S.M. – We have some excellent cooperation with the Ombudsman, Mr. Branko Naumovski and his cooperators. We promote their work from the very beginning and everywhere and in my opinion, this Institution is now working much better than before. One of the biggest problems is that the state institutions most often cooperate with the Ombudsman and the Law for Ombudsman provides it in a certain way since it is implicit, understated and can be interpreted differently. At the moment we are starting to cooperate with the Ombudsman on changing this law.   C.W. – There was a spectacular news which was not really noticed in the Macedonian media – for a case of achieving human rights, with your help, in front of the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg. How did the “servant Jernej” from our area and time get his justice? How did Mrs. Janeva manage to win the lawsuit against the Macedonian country? S.M. – Well, briefly, this is the story: a certain Mr. Janev from Shtip, was made redundant ten years ago and he wanted his justice in front of the Macedonian courts. In the meantime he died and his wife, Mrs. Janeva, continued searching for justice. She was lucky to hire a good lawyer, Mr. Trajche Torov from Shtip. He took part at several numerous training courses for application of the European convention which we had for different target groups, among which for lawyers. In relation to this case he got in touch with our colleague Zoran Gavriloski and with his help, he applied to the European Court in Strasbourg. The case was taken over by the European Court, because there were indications that it was about breaking the right of a legal procedure in a reasonable term and in one moment, the Government, realizing that it was going to lose the lawsuit, suggested a contract for compensation of damage to Mrs. Janeva. It was negotiated over and the European Court verified the reached agreement between the two parties: Macedonia is to pay Mrs. Janeva compensation of 77,000 Euro. This is an example of achieving human rights, which encourages and is first bigger success in front of this institution in the countries of former Yugoslavia. I hope that in future, such cases will be quickly and efficiently solved in front of the Macedonian courts. Our vision is efficient achieving of human rights guaranteed by the constitution and the laws of the Republic of Macedonia at home, not in Strasbourg, which would be one of the essential indicators of the civilization development of our society. Establishing the judicial system where it should be is one of the essential conditions for achieving this objective.