Macedonia Plans Whistleblower Protection Law

The draft law intended to protect the people who supplied evidence about illegal mass surveillance to Macedonia's opposition as well as to shield future whistleblowers is expected to reach parliament by October 20 after both government and opposition agreed on its content.

"From a comparative analysis with the EU countries, we realised that we need legal protections for those who dare to report corruption. These citizens must not suffer consequences for their actions," Justice Minister Adnan Jashari told a conference on whistleblower protection in Skopje organised by Transparency International - Macedonia on Thursday.

The initiative for a whistleblower protection law was first raised by Transparency in 2012 and the ministry responded by preparing a draft that never reached parliament.

But the issue was raised again by the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM last week at EU-mediated inter-party talks aimed at implementing urgent reforms to end the current crisis.

Frosina Remenski, one of the vice-presidents of the SDSM, insisted that the party's push for such a law is not only to protect the people that it claims gave it the wiretapped conversations which sparked the crisis when they were released to the public .

"Without the wiretapping [affair] and without a law that would protect them from all the possible pressures and consequences, many of the people who are yet to appear as whistleblowers would get discouraged," said Remenski.

The EU ambassador to Macedonia, Aivo Orav, said during his address to the conference said that such a law was "one of the key challenges for the country".

Orav argued that in order for people to be encouraged to report corruption, confidence in Macedonian institutions must be restored. He also...