Country report, gender equality : how are EU rules transposed into national law? : FYR of Macedonia 2015

Macedonian national law as an heir of ex-Yugoslav law is a continental, civil-law system. The court system is based on strict hierarchy, with basic courts, appellate courts and one Supreme Court. In addition, there is the constitutional court which until 2006 dealt with discrimination as exclusive competence. Unfortunately, in practice, this mechanism did not function as expected. According to the records, in the period 1996 to 2010 there were 253 individual petitions asserting discrimination, and the Constitutional Court rejected all of them. In the last five years of that period, there even was a dramatic fall in the use of this constitutional mechanism (2006 - 6 cases, 2007 - 6 cases, 2008 - 5, 2009 - 10, and only 3 in 2010). In the decisions, the dominant reason for rejecting the claim was a legal technicality, followed by the determination of the Constitutional Court not to act as a supervisory third-level court, and finally, failure of the petitioner to present sufficient evidence. This also means that the Court does not implement the shift of the burden of proof, i.e. the burden of proof still lies with the claimant. Hence, starting in 2006, antidiscrimination legislation was introduced in individual laws, enabling civil courts of law to deal with discrimination cases. Also the ombudsperson and the Commission for protection from discrimination were given powers in this area, while the main active factor was supposed to be the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy.