MINISTERS’ DEPUTIES

Decisions

CM/Del/Dec(2024)1501/H46-23

13 June 2024

1501st meeting, 11-13 June 2024 (DH)   H46-23 Kitanovski group v. North Macedonia (Application No. 15191/12) Supervision of the execution of the European Court’s judgments   Reference document CM/Notes/1501/H46-23

 

Decisions

The Deputies

1.         recalled that these cases concern ill-treatment as well as unjustified use of potentially lethal force by police agents and the lack of effective investigations in this regard, including into discriminatory attitude by the police agents; 

As regards individual measures

2.         noted that in Ilievska the criminal investigation opened following the Court’s findings could not confirm the applicant’s allegations of ill-treatment, despite all reasonable investigatory steps taken; decided therefore to close the examination of individual measures in the that case by adopting Final Resolution CM/ResDH(2024)121;

3.         invited the authorities to provide information on further developments on the resumed or reopened investigations in the cases of X and Y and Memedov;

As regards general measures

-           Substantive violation of Article 2

4.         welcomed the abolishment of the 1998 Decree regarding the use of means of force and firearms, which was in force at the time of Kitanovski; noted with interest also that there is a new legal framework for the use of firearms by the police which includes numerous safeguards against unjustified use of force and that numerous training and awareness raising measures have been organised; recalling nevertheless that “absolute necessity” must exist in each case of the use of lethal force by the police, invited the authorities to provide information on domestic practice demonstrating that the use of firearms by the police is limited to circumstances when the use of force is “absolutely necessary”; invited also the authorities to provide any statistics concerning incidents involving the use of firearms by the police leading to injuries or death of individuals;

-           Substantive violations of Article 3

5.         noted with interest the progress made concerning the lack of fundamental safeguards for the prevention of ill-treatment in some aspects (such as notification of third persons of detention), but expressed concern about the lack of progress in other aspects (such as independent and confidential access to a doctor and access to a lawyer), as reported by the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) and the CPT; invited again the authorities to address these issues as a matter of priority and, in this context, strongly encouraged the Police Directorate to consider issuing an instruction to all police officers on the right of access to a lawyer in police custody;

6.         encouraged further the authorities to continue and reinforce training and awareness raising of the police, prosecutors and judges, drawing also on the Council of Europe expertise and training courses such as the relevant HELP courses; further given the fundamental role of the NPM in the prevention of torture and ill-treatment, invited the authorities to take measures to strengthen its capacity and ensure that it has the resources necessary to carry out its activities;

-           Procedural violations of Articles 2 and 3

7.         noted with interest the data provided on the functioning of the External Oversight Mechanism (EOM), including the appointment of the third representative of civil society in the Civil Control Mechanism established within the Ombudsman’s Office, as well as the tabling before Parliament of the amendments to the Law on the Ombudsman envisaging the increase of the mandate of the representatives of civil society in the Mechanism to three years, which is expected to increase its effectiveness; invited the authorities to take further measures to improve the effectiveness of investigations undertaken and to keep the Committee informed on the practical functioning of the EOM, on the outcome of the legislative procedure, and to provide relevant statistical data;

8.         noted with interest the information provided by the authorities on measures taken to prevent delays in criminal prosecutorial and judicial investigations; encouraged the authorities to finalise the preparation of the software that will enable statistics to be kept about the duration of the pre-investigation and investigation proceedings, and to provide relevant statistical data once available, so as to allow it to assess the impact of the measures taken;

9.         welcomed the legislative, strategic, capacity-building and awareness-raising measures taken by the authorities aimed at preventing discrimination on ethnic grounds against Roma[1] in criminal investigations, and decided to close the examination of this aspect of the group;

10.       welcoming the detailed information on the domestic legal framework ensuring the victims’ participation in criminal investigations, including information on the existing practice ensuring that the prosecutors’ decisions on criminal complaints are served to the complainants and that the latter are adequately informed of the results of the criminal investigations, decided to close this aspect of the group;

11.       invited the authorities to provide information on all the outstanding issues mentioned above by June 2025 at the latest.