Published on 3 August 2026
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 5455/22
Mile JANAKIESKI
against North Macedonia
lodged on 24 January 2022
communicated on 2 July 2026
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns criminal proceedings against the applicant (a former Minister of Transport of the respondent State and member of the VMRO-DPMNE political party) for having incited, at the request of the former Prime Minister (N.G.), public violence towards the then-mayor of the Centar Municipality in Skopje and the members of the Centar Municipal Council in relation to protests held on 7 and 10 June 2013.
The background to the case is similar to that in Taleski and Others v. North Macedonia ((dec.), nos. 77796/17 and five other applications, §§ 4-8, 24 January 2023).
During a press conference held on 19 April 2015, the SDSM political party published several audio recordings of telephone conversations that related to the organisation of the protests in June 2013. According to the applicant, these recordings had been part of the evidence submitted together with a criminal complaint lodged in relation to these protests.
On 27 August 2015 a pre-trial judge of the Skopje Court of First Instance (“the trial court”) excluded a CD with audio recordings that were part of the casefile formed by the Public Prosecutor as unlawfully obtained evidence. On 4 November 2015, a three-judge panel of the trial court upheld that decision.
On 14 September 2016 the Special prosecutor for the prosecution of cases related to and arising from the content of the unlawful interception of communications (“the SPO”) filed an indictment, charging the applicant and N.G. with inciting the other defendants to public violence in relation to the protests held on 7 and 10 June 2013. Among other evidence, the indictment relied on a CD with two audio recordings of intercepted communications.
On 16 December 2016 the trial judge excluded the CD with the audio recordings as unlawfully obtained evidence. On 4 August 2017 the Skopje Court of Appeal (“the Court of Appeal”) quashed that decision, finding that irrespective of how the audio recordings had been produced, they had been lawfully obtained by the SPO and had been validated as evidence by the Act which had established the SPO.
According to the applicant, on 15 May 2019 the defence proposed the examination of 16 witnesses, which had initially been accepted by the trial court, but subsequently, at the hearing held on 14 October 2019, the trial court refused to examine 10 of those witnesses.
On 29 September 2020 the trial court convicted the applicant and N.G. (who was tried in absentia) of inciting public violence. Five other defendants were convicted for perpetrating the public violence. The applicant was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence of one year. The trial court established that on 1 June 2013 N.G. asked the applicant to organise members of the VMRO-DPMNE political party to commit public violence against the mayor and the members of the Centar Municipal Council. The applicant gave instructions via T.L. (who pleaded guilty in separate proceedings) for demonstrators to assemble and disrupt the Centar Municipal Council scheduled sessions on 7 and 10 June 2013. In establishing the relevant facts, the trial court relied on the following evidence: eyewitness testimony of several witnesses and video recordings of the events; T.L.’s statement at the trial; an audio recording of the intercepted telephone conversation between the applicant and N.G. conducted on 1 June 2013 (the second recording was deemed as irrelevant); and two prosecutor-commissioned expert reports that confirmed the integrity and authenticity of the recordings. The trial court dismissed a defence-commissioned expert report (that had been done on basis of an inspection of the recordings from the casefile) that challenged the authenticity of the recordings. Further, the trial court considered that the proceedings had been fair, the audio recordings had been played at the trial, and the defence had actively participated in the proceedings.
The applicant appealed, inter alia, complaining that the proceedings had not been fair as the conviction had been based on unlawfully obtained evidence whose authenticity had not been sufficiently established. He argued that the original audio recording had never been adduced at the trial, it had been previously excluded as unlawfully obtained evidence and the defence had not been able to obtain a copy of the recording. He further complained that the trial court had given insufficient reasons when it had dismissed the defence’s request to hear the witnesses, some of whom had been referenced by T.L. and mentioned in the recording as being involved in the coordination that preceded the protests and therefore had been relevant for the proceedings.
On 10 September 2021 the Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant’s appeals and upheld the conviction. It held that the defence had been able to actively participate in the proceedings and that the trial court had not been obliged to examine all witnesses, only those that had been deemed relevant for the establishment of the relevant facts. The applicant received a copy of that judgment on 3 December 2021.
Under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3(b) of the Convention the applicant complains that his conviction ran contrary to the principles of fair trial and equality of arms. In particular, he complains that: (i) he was convicted, in violation of the principle of legal certainty, on the basis of the audio recordings, that had been obtained unlawfully, that were the main evidence against him, and that had been previously excluded as unlawful evidence; (ii) the audio recordings were admitted in evidence as copies and not originals and the prosecution‑commissioned expert report had been prepared on basis of recordings which were not accessible to the defence; (iii) the trial court accepted to examine only 7 witnesses for the defence, compared to 21 witness for the prosecution.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of the criminal charges against him, in accordance with Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention? In particular:
(a) Did he have a fair hearing, in view of the circumstances in which the audio recordings from the allegedly unlawfully intercepted communications were obtained and did the applicant have an opportunity to challenge their authenticity (see, for the relevant principles, Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye [GC], no. 15669/20, §§ 302-04, 26 September 2023)?
(b) Was the principle of equality of arms respected as regards the conditions afforded to the defence to present its case? Did the domestic courts’ decisions not to examine the evidence proposed by the applicant undermine the overall fairness of the proceedings, in particular regarding the witnesses whose examination had been proposed by the defence (see Murtazaliyeva v. Russia [GC], no. 36658/05, §§ 139-68, 18 December 2018)?
2. The Government are invited to submit copies of all relevant documents concerning the applicant’s case, including the minutes of the hearings and the written submissions of the applicant and his lawyers throughout the proceedings.