Although the RNM Government in the past few years has started to cooperate more actively with civil society organizations, to include them in the processes of creating laws and policies, as well as to take into account the recommendations from the prepared documents and analyses, however, this did not happen with the process of amendments and amendments to the Criminal Code (CC). Namely, a closed working group was established within the Ministry of Justice, in which no civil organization was invited to participate. After more than a year, in July 2021, the working group submitted to the Government the first draft document with amendments and additions to the CC, which basically proposed amendments in the direction of compliance with the Istanbul Convention, but there was room for improvement.
Motivated by the opportunity to contribute to a better text proposal, we organized a meeting with the organizations that are members of the National Network and the Platform for Gender Equality, where the requests for changes that we will represent as civil society organizations were agreed upon. Two months later, in November 2021, we also organized a meeting with the Club of Women Parliamentarians where the requested changes and additions were presented. After the detailed presentation of the proposed amendments, as well as the attitude of civil society organizations for the improvement of the protection of women victims of gender-based and family violence, the present parliamentarians agreed that the improvement and addition of the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code are necessary.
As a conclusion of the meeting, the need arose to organize a public hearing, which, at the invitation of the president of the commission for equal opportunities for women and men, prof. Gordana Siljanovska, was held in December 2021. In addition to the Minister of Justice, Mr. Bojan Maricic, the representative from the National Network, legal expert Ana Avramova Nushkova, also addressed the public hearing. The prepared document with a request for amendments and additions to the text of the proposal prepared by the working group within the Ministry of Justice was delivered in a printed version to all those present at the public hearing, and the next day to all MPs and other relevant stakeholders. The process continued during 2022.
At the invitation of the parliamentarians, two representatives from the National Network team – executive director Elena Dimushevska and legal expert Ana Avramoska Nushkova, worked together with them on drafting the amendments for the requested changes and additions to the draft text of the Criminal Code. Although it was originally planned that the amendment to the CC would be on the agenda in the Parliament in March 2022, the process was postponed and the first reading took place in November of the same year, when some of the proposed amendments were voted on. In December, the second reading was scheduled, and the team of the National Network, together with the female parliamentarians, prepared new amendments that were submitted to the Commission for European Affairs on behalf of the Club of Women Deputies.
Part of the submitted amendments were voted on in the second reading, i.e. in addition to the new definitions of gender-based violence and violence against women, victims of gender-based violence, and the amended definition of domestic violence, the request to harmonize the crime of rape with the provisions of the Istanbul Convention was accepted. and the inclusion of marital/intimate partner rape as an aggravated form of the underlying offense. Furthermore, it was voted to introduce three new criminal acts – stalking, female genital mutilation, and sexual harassment, which includes the method of committing this crime through the Internet and other means of electronic communication. The addition of the crime of murder is also very significant, in which the murder of a woman or girl under the age of 18 during the commission of gender-based violence is provided as a more serious crime.
The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code were adopted at a session of the Assembly held on February 13th and they were published in the Official Gazette of the RNM on the 17th. These amendments to the CC entered into force on February 25, 2023.
Although these changes mean an improvement of the Criminal Code, they do not bring full compliance with the provisions of the Istanbul Convention. The petition will continue in the coming year, and the National Network team is preparing a new document with the remaining changes and additions that need to be adopted for full harmonization of the criminal code.
