Macedonia Vows to Reform Scandal-Hit Secret Police
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| Macedonian government session. Archive photo: gov.mk |
Macedonia’s secret police, UBK, will no longer have unchecked powers to place people under surveillance, and will no longer be misused for political purposes, under a set of bills that form part of EU-recommended reforms of the security sector.
The government said it has already adopted the proposed model for reforms, and had tasked the Interior Ministry to coordinate its implementation.
The ultimate goal, it said, was to “decentralize the UBK’s unchecked power” and create a system of checks and balances that would prevent further misuses.
One of the key novelties is that the secret police will no longer be part of the Interior Ministry, but a separate independent agency that will be placed directly under government control.
Another novelty that the government insists will be key is that the UBK, following reforms, will stop working under the existing Law on Police; its work will instead be regulated by a separate law.
This law will take away the UBK’s powers to put people under surveillance and arrest them, turning it from a repressive organ into a strictly preventive one, that will be tasked with handling national security.
This is the second step in the UBK’s reforms, in practice.
In late November and early December, the government proposed and parliament adopted amendments to the Law on Surveillance aimed at ensuring that the secret police are no longer in charge of the technical process of surveillance.
The amendments envisaged the formation of a new Operational Technical Agency, OTA, which will be independent of the secret police and under much firmer civil control.
Its work will be monitored closely by the Prosecutor’s Office.
The UBK will only be able to analyze the collected data but will no longer have the ability to eavesdrop itself.
The previous law allowed the UBK to eavesdrop without needing a court’s permission and without notifying the telecommunications operators.
Also, as part of the wider reforms, mobile operators will no longer be obliged to provide technical equipment to the UBK, with which it could easily penetrate their systems for surveillance purposes.
The reforms in the security sector were sought by Brussels and are one of the key preconditions if the country is to formally open EU accession talks, expected at the end of next year.
They come after a massive illegal surveillance scandal rocked Macedonia in 2015, causing a long political crisis.
Former prime minister and VMRO DPMNE chief Nikola Gruevski – who last month fled from serving a jail sentence in an unrelated criminal case – and his cousin, former secret police chief Saso Mijalkov, were accused of masterminding the illegal surveillance of some 20,000 people, including government ministers, which they denied.
The crisis only ended with the election of the current Social Democrat-led government.
Since 2015, several other ongoing investigations and trials have pinpointed the UBK as a body entangled in a variety of politically-directed misuses.
The Special Prosecution, SJO, which was formed as part of an EU-mediated agreement between Macedonia’s parties and tasked with investigating high-level corruption – has already put on trial former UBK chief Saso Mijalkov, as well as other top police officials.
Mijalkov and others are being tried for the illegal surveillance operation, and for trying to destroy evidence of it.
In another ongoing court case in which 33 people are on trial for last year’s attack on parliament, the regular Prosecution for Organized Crime earlier this month requested – and the courts approved – the arrest of another secret police chief, Vladimir Atanasovski.
Atanasovski was placed under arrest after defendants in the trial named Atanaskovski as one of the alleged organisers of the event, which left some 100 people injured.
Read more:
Macedonia Ruling Party ‘Coordinated’ Parliament Violence, Trial Hears
Macedonia Arrests Former Secret Police Chief
