Skopje, 22 October 2024 (MIA) -- The political party Levica filed a criminal complaint Tuesday against Parliament Speaker Afrim Gashi over his alleged abuse of office regarding the draft-law on Macedonian defenders. VMRO-DPMNE said they would not comment on the complaint until they saw it, and SDSM said they would take steps to push the bill through.

According to Levica, Gashi had violated his duty in not convening a committee session to discuss the bill.

"The law has been stuck in parliamentary procedure ever since the relevant committee chair decided not to convene a session and, this way, block the law," Levica MP Sashko Janchev said, adding that it was Gashi's duty to unblock the procedure by convening the session himself and appointing a new session chair, in line with the parliamentary Rules of Procedure.

However, Gashi told reporters on Sept. 16 he had no intention of unblocking the defenders bill or convening a session about it -- and he has not, to this day, the Levica MP said.

According to him, the parliamentary speaker saying he had no right to intervene and appoint another session chair since the committee chair had previously convened a session in line with legal provisions, was Gashi's "extensive interpretation, aimed at never placing the defenders law on the agenda."

"The Rules of Procedure clearly say: If a committee chair does not convene a session on a given law, the parliament speaker needs to appoint another session chair within 24 hours," Janchev said.

SDSM said they would take steps to push through the Macedonian defenders law, which they had submitted to Parliament. The party is not giving up on the bill, SDSM MP Jovanka Trenchevska told a press conference Tuesday.

"We had a coordination meeting of our parliamentary group yesterday to talk about our next steps regarding the Defenders Law. We will publicly share all details on our next move regarding the law soon. We are not giving up on the adoption of the Defenders Law," Trenchevska said.

VMRO-DPMNE said they would not comment on Levica's criminal complaint until they saw it.

VMRO-DPMNE MP Bojan Stojanovski said Tuesday there had been several cases of Levica withdrawing their criminal complainta and asked for settlements between its leader and the people they sued.

Speaking about the Macedonian defenders law, Stojanoski said his party had put in efforts to unblock its adoption procedure.

"In addition to voting, we also urged the chair to convene the committee," the VMRO-DPMNE MP said.

"Then five of our MPs signed [a petition] calling on Ilire Dauti to convene the committee, leaving two blank spaces for [SDSM's Jovanka] Trenchevska and [SDSM's Fatmir] Bytyqi to sign, but they didn't," Stojanovski said.

"We went one step further and asked for a no-confidence vote against Dauti," he said, adding that this had received no SDSM support, either.

The defenders law proposal was submitted by SDSM lawmaker and former defense minister Slavjanka Petrovska. The bill received the support of lawmakers for a fast-track parliamentary procedure.

When parliamentary Social Policy, Demographics, and Youth Committee chair Ilire Dauti did not put the bill on the agenda at a committee session, Parliament Speaker Gashi said Dauti had convened the session regardless and he had no official powers to appoint a new session chair.

"Article 126 of the Rules of Procedure does not say, 'If the committee chair refuses to put a specific law on the agenda" but "if the committee chair does not convene a session'," Gashi said in a Kanal 5 TV appearance on Sept. 16. Given that Ilire Dauti had convened a session on the law, Gashi said, the Rules of Procedure prevented him from appointing another lawmaker to chair the session. mr/