Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, in an interview with Alsat TV, expressed his views on the demands of Albanian students to take the bar exam in the Albanian language, for which they organized protests in Skopje on several occasions.
He says that “Albanian ministers of justice from past governments did not want to solve the issue of the bar exam, while this government is working on a sustainable solution to overcome this problem.”
– From the first day I have said that and I stand behind it that if the state allowed the establishment of higher education in a language other than Macedonian, in this case in Macedonia we have such examples with the Albanian, Turkish and English languages and if the state allowed it to be done, I see no reason why the theoretical part of the bar exam should not be conducted in one of those languages which is different from the Macedonian language, because you allowed the establishment of higher education in that language – said Prime Minister Mickoski for Alsat, reports MIA.
The Prime Minister also pointed out that the position of the Venice Commission is that we must have a lingua franca, that is, one language within the framework of the judiciary in Macedonia, and in this case they do not conflict with each other.
– On the other hand, we should also say that the statistics are relentless and almost 95 percent of the Albanian candidates who have taken the bar exam so far have passed both the theoretical and practical part in Macedonian, which means that there is absolutely no question of discrimination – added Prime Minister Mickoski.
He emphasized that the current law as it is does not regulate the passing, but leaves the right to the Minister of Justice with a certain other legal act to regulate the passing of the bar exam, therefore, he added, this Government is looking for a solution, unlike the previous governments where Albanian ministers did not solve the problem.
– In the past years, more Albanian ministers from the ranks of DUI did not want to, and this Government has a desire and is working on finding a way to overcome this issue, that is, this problem, and Minister Filkov is part of this Government that is looking for a solution, unlike the previous governments in which Albanian ministers, for justice, did not want to solve it – said Mickoski.
