Published on 3 August 2026
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 27221/23
Katica JANEVA
against North Macedonia
lodged on 22 June 2023
communicated on 2 July 2026
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the dismissal of the civil action for defamation and insult lodged by the applicant, former head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office (“the SPO”), against V.R., head of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime and Corruption at the relevant time.
In October 2019 V.R. indicted the applicant for abuse of office. The applicant was charged with having accepted money and pieces of furniture in order to propose the lifting of a detention order issued in respect of a third person. It appears that she was in house arrest during a certain period of time. In December 2020 V.R. stated in a televised interview that the applicant had ruined the SPO, that the SPO would have still existed if the applicant had behaved “as she should have”, and that the applicant was being prosecuted because she had taken money in order to “release someone from detention” and that she had “afterwards taken other money”, but that “it could not be said that anyone, including [the third person], was a an offender (криминалец) until there was a final judgment”.
In her civil compensation claim the applicant argued that V.R.’s statements had been insulting or false (in particular in its part stating that she was being prosecuted for having taken “other money”). The first-instance court refused to admit into evidence a CD containing a copy of the video recording of the interview. The domestic courts at two levels dismissed the applicant’s claim. They found, inter alia, that V.R.’s statements were not insulting, that at the relevant time the applicant had been convicted at first instance and that her conviction had later been confirmed, that the applicant had failed to prove her allegations as to how the SPO had in fact been ruined, and that she had not submitted an expert report concerning the mental pain she had allegedly suffered. The appeal court did not expressly address the applicant’s argument that the first-instance court had departed from its previous practice of admitting CDs into evidence.
Invoking Articles 6 and 10 of the Convention, the applicant complains that the domestic courts did not admit into evidence the CD with the recording of V.R.’s statement despite the previous practice of the civil courts, that they did not take into account V.R.’s status of a public official, that they transferred the burden of proof on her to establish the truthfulness of V.R.’s statements, and that she was prevented from obtaining an expert report on the mental pain and suffering as she had been in house arrest at the relevant time.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of her civil rights and obligations, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was the principle of legal certainty breached when the domestic courts refused to admit in evidence the CD proposed by the applicant, allegedly in contravention to the previously established practice of the civil courts (see, for the general principles, Lupeni Greek Catholic Parish and Others v. Romania [GC], no. 76943/11, § 116, 29 November 2016)?
2. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for her private life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention, in the light of the conduct of the impugned proceedings and the alleged inadequate reasons supporting the domestic decisions (see, for the general principles, Jishkariani v. Georgia, no. 18925/09, §§ 41-46, 20 September 2018; see also, mutatis mutandis, Popovski v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, no. 12316/07, §§ 88-91, 31 October 2013)?