Skopje, 3 November 2023 (MIA) — North Macedonia's chief state prosecutor Ljubomir Joveski told the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on the Oncology Clinic Scandal it had overstepped its authority and was disrupting the prosecution's probe. 

Speaking to the inquiry committee on Friday, Joveski said he was "convinced that this is not a mistake but instead a case of parliamentary bodies overstepping their authority to disrupt the preliminary investigation procedure led by the Prosecutor's Office." 

"It is absolutely irrelevant who proposed and who approved of this," he continued. 

"A public prosecutor is not an expert, nor can he be called to testify during an ongoing criminal proceeding. This is prohibited by the Constitution, which clearly defines the separation of the legislative, the executive and the judicial powers and guarantees the public prosecutor's independence as the competent authority on criminal prosecution," Joveski said.

According to him, the inquiry committee's hearing violates several laws, notably the Criminal Procedure Code, which protects the secrecy of the preliminary investigation procedure and the legal evidence. It also violates the parliamentary Rules of Procedure, he said.

"Article 123 of the Rules of Procedure of Parliament says that working bodies cannot have investigative or other functions. In your committee's rulebook, in the section on competences, you yourself wrote that the inquiry commitee will rule on the political responsibility for this whole case. However, the Public Prosecutor's Office procedures as well as most of the witnesses you have been interviewing here every day cannot be subject to political responsibility. And criminal responsibility, you might be sorry to hear, is not in your competence," the chief public prosecutor said.

He said the PPO's probe into the Oncology Clinic case was being conducted thoroughly and expertly regardless of any attempts at obstruction.

"My only brother died at the Oncology Clinic four years ago," Joveski continued. "A member of my immediate family is currently a patient at that clinic. And I am not saying this to show how important it is for me to get to the truth, but because I know that even these personal facts, which should be none of anyone's concern, could be misused politically to cast doubt on the impartiality of the procedure." 

"I have never influenced nor will I ever influence the public prosecutors investigating the case," Joveski stressed.
 
Inquiry committee chair Rashela Mizrahi said the committee had been formed "under Article 76 of the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia and Article 118 of the Rules of Procedure of Parliament as the highest authority in the state."

"You may discuss the role of the Prosecutor's Office with us and also with the media regarding the Besa Trans [bus crash tragedy] or the [Tetovo Covid-19] modular hospital that burned down because of an electrical cable," Mizrahi said.

"And you have heard the citizens' associations that, also through tears, have been asking for justice that should come from you," she said. mr/