On 24 March 2026, a roundtable on the topic “Introduction of a Constitutional Complaint?” was held at the Constitutional Court, with the support of the Delegation of the European Union in Skopje. As part of the event, Judge Prof. Dr Osman Kadriu delivered an address, stating:
Once again, a clear and undisputed reality has been confirmed: we are all committed to an issue that is increasingly gaining recognition in our society, namely the protection of human freedoms and rights, including their protection before the Constitutional Court.
Two fundamental questions arise in this regard: the substantive legal aspect of protection, and the formal legal aspect—namely, how such protection is to be ensured.
With regard to the first question, at numerous academic fora and international conferences organised by our Court and other courts, the issue of protection has been consistently highlighted as an inevitable feature of modern legal systems and contemporary legal orders. Constitutional legal scholarship has no doubt that the introduction of a constitutional complaint represents an important legal instrument for ensuring protection before the Constitutional Court.
However, uncertainties have existed and continue to exist, reflected in each in concreto situation, particularly concerning the scope within which human rights protection should be ensured.
As a rule, most constitutional legal systems opt for a model in which all fundamental freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution enjoy protection before the Constitutional Court. This represents the broadest possible scope of protection.
The question then arises as to whether a state is able to provide constitutional judicial protection for all fundamental freedoms and rights guaranteed by its Constitution, or whether it lacks such capacity. The second group of states, to which ours belongs, adopts a highly restrictive approach to the constitutional judicial protection of freedoms and rights. A further group of countries, in the minority, does not provide any constitutional guarantee that human rights and freedoms will enjoy constitutional judicial protection.
With regard to the fundamental freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution, I consider that the majority of countries with established constitutional systems opt for protection of all rights. However, there is also a view within our system that only one third of provisions relate to specific freedoms and rights, and there is also the argument that justice would be sufficiently served if protection were limited to the rights guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights,” stated Judge Kadriu.