More than 40,000 criminal complaints remain open at North Macedonia’s Public Prosecutor’s Office

The 2025 Work Report of North Macedonia’s Public Prosecutor’s Office shows that the basic public prosecutor’s offices in North Macedonia handled a total of 77,089 perpetrators of criminal offenses from all categories during the year, including both new cases and those carried over from previous years, Portalb.mk reports.

According to the report, new criminal complaints were filed in 2025 against 25,615 perpetrators of criminal offenses. Of this total, 19,976 were adults, 1,124 were children, while 4,515 cases referred to unknown perpetrators. Together with unresolved cases carried over from previous periods, the total number of cases under review reached 77,089.

The document states that during 2025, the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Offices acted on newly received criminal complaints against 25,615 perpetrators of criminal offenses, of whom 19,976 were adults, 1,124 children, and 4,515 unknown perpetrators. At the same time, there were a total of 36,876 persons under review, including 25,615 newly reported individuals, 11,091 adults with unresolved cases from the end of 2024, and 170 unresolved cases involving children. When this figure is combined with 40,213 unresolved complaints against unknown perpetrators from all previous years, it results in a total of 77,089 perpetrators of criminal offenses from all three categories handled by the prosecution offices.

A comparison with 2024 shows that the overall workload remained almost at the same level. A slight decrease was recorded among adult perpetrators and unknown perpetrators, while a more pronounced decline was registered only among child perpetrators.

Specifically, in 2025 the number of adults was lower by 127 persons, or 0.63%, the number of children fell by 136, or 10.79%, while 31 fewer complaints were registered against unknown perpetrators, or 0.68% less.

As for known adult perpetrators, during 2025 the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Offices handled 31,067 persons. Of these, 19,976 were newly received complaints, while 11,091 were unresolved cases carried over from the previous period.

In 2024, meanwhile, proceedings had been conducted against 31,283 known adult perpetrators of criminal offenses. Of this number, 20,103 persons had been newly reported, while 11,180 cases had been carried over as unresolved from earlier.

This means that in 2025 the overall volume of work involving known adult perpetrators was lower by 216 cases, or 0.69%. Likewise, the number of newly reported persons was lower by 127 known adult perpetrators, representing a decrease of 0.63%, while unresolved complaints were lower by 89 known adult perpetrators, or 0.79% less.

The report emphasizes that these indicators show that the workload in 2025, compared with 2024, remained at the same level. According to the same assessment, the number of resolved complaints and unresolved complaints at the end of the year was also almost the same, which means that work involving known adult perpetrators was handled in an identical manner.

The report also includes three-year data to provide a more detailed overview of changes in the workload.

Regional analysis shows that the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Bitola recorded a small but steady decline in the number of cases, while the biggest drop was found in Gostivar. By contrast, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Skopje recorded a noticeable increase in workload, while in Shtip the situation appears almost constant, with a slight increase.

The most pronounced increase was recorded at the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the Prosecution of Organized Crime and Corruption, where the number of cases rose by around 50 percent.

According to the report, this trend is linked to intensified work by the Judicial Police institutions, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Financial Police Directorate, and the Customs Administration in detecting and reporting criminal offenses.

The prosecution assesses that these figures demonstrate continuity in the detection and reporting of crime at the national level. At the same time, the differences observed between regions are also linked to demographic shifts and declining population numbers in certain areas.

The report says this shows stability in the detection and reporting of crime, while in some areas this is considered linked to population decline. Likewise, the expected increase in the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the Prosecution of Organized Crime and Corruption is tied to greater activity during 2025 by institutions within the Judicial Police, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Financial Police Directorate, and the Customs Administration.

The same report also stresses that the largest filer of criminal complaints with the prosecution is the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Of a total of 19,976 reported persons, the ministry filed complaints against 14,422 people, or 72.2% of the total number of complaints. Meanwhile, of the criminal complaints received and resolved during 2025, the prosecution dismissed 42% of the total.