Dimitrievski warns ZNAM will leave government if bar exam is held in Albanian

The bar exam should be held only in Macedonian, according to Maksim Dimitrievski, leader of the ZNAM Movement. He said his party would not accept the exam being held in another language and was ready to leave the governing coalition if the government decided otherwise.

Dimitrievski said Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski was aware of ZNAM’s position, while stressing the party’s willingness to discuss the issue with its coalition partners.

He announced that at his next meeting with the prime minister, he would request a meeting of party leaders. According to him, the issue has never been openly discussed with the government’s coalition partners, and such a meeting would serve to establish red lines and examine what this would mean for the state and the justice system in the future.

The ZNAM leader sees the bar exam as part of a broader issue concerning the functioning of the justice system and the structure of the state. He claimed that demands to expand the use of Albanian in this field were driven by broader political ambitions and that there were forces in the country seeking to turn the state into a confederation one day.

According to Dimitrievski, although Macedonia is a republic, certain individuals continually call for more rights and for local communities to be united along ethnic rather than territorial lines. He also referred to a statement made after the local elections in Bërvenicë, when, according to him, a former leader of Albanian parties said it was time to proclaim Ilirida.

Dimitrievski argued that Macedonia could not remain simply a republic if advancing certain rights of other ethnic communities, which exercise those rights, was considered a constitutional right that further complicated the state. According to him, this makes matters simpler for a small group of citizens who are an integral part of the state, but complicates the process for everyone else.

Demands for the exam to also be held in Albanian, which he said were being naively imposed on public opinion, run counter, in his view, to the Venice Commission’s 2019 recommendations on the use of a language other than Macedonian in the justice system. He warned of major consequences for the functioning of the country’s justice system.

Dimitrievski clarified that he did not oppose the use of the languages of non-majority ethnic communities, citing Kumanovo as an example, where multilingualism is practised in the work of the Municipal Council. However, he said neither he nor the party he leads would allow the state to become more complicated.