REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

266
Remembrance in Time
the subject and son of one of these Yugoslav convicts and a leader of IMRO in 1947,
points out that only in 1945 and 1946 more than 4700 Bulgarians were murdered or
missing, and more than 15 000 others were sent to prison[3][xii].
After more than two decades from proclaiming the independence of FYROM
rehabilitation of victims is still a question for the future. The existing legislation
effectively deprives the victims and their heirs of political and social justice. Art. 36 of
the constitution of FYROM from 1991 declares that the state guarantees the social rights
of anti-fascist resistance fighters and also of the persecuted and repressed people for
“their ideas about the identity of the Macedonian people and the state system” and the
members of their families who are not capable of physical and social existence [xiii].
Only on July 18, 2002 the Law for the rights of the prosecuted and repressed for their
ideas about the identity of the Macedonian people and the state system and the members
of their families was approved, by whose aid the declared constitutional rights must be
implemented. According to Art. 2 of the Law the people who were interned, forced to
emigrate, removed from work, detained or confined by Court’s judgment or declared for
illegal gaining of wealth, for ideas and actions with the purpose of “creation of
independent, united and democratic state of Macedonia” [xiv], are entitled to material
compensation and social protection. Lawmakers retrospectively equate the struggle for
“independent Macedonia” which is a program of the anti-Yugoslav and anti-communist
opposition to the affirmation of “the identity of the Macedonian people” – Tito’s
communist doctrine. The victims, most of whom dead, and their heirs are subjected to a
new violence, which aims at replacing the memory of the past. Despite the limitations of
the Law which excludes from its scope a number of groups persecuted by the communist
regime, its application is blocked by the decision of the Constitutional Court from
December 18, 2002. The Court ruled on an appeal of the Union of the fighters for
national liberation and anti-fascist war, an organization with a strong communist
character, and repeals Art. 2 and some other provisions unconstitutional, which
effectively makes the law inapplicable [xv].
In 2005 the Assembly of the Republic passed a law which amends and supplements the
law form 2002, where the repealed texts are repeated with minor additions. It should be
noted that those corrections are in fact a formal recognition of the repressions: detentions
without trial, sentences to death and prison, sentences to forced and ‘corrective” labor and
internees after 1945 [xvi]. The Union of the fighters opposed against these provisions and
challenged the law before the Constitutional Court. The arguments of the depositors of
the new law are that during the period between 1945 and 1991 there are no registered
cases of persecution for ideas and actions aimed at promoting “the identity of
Macedonian people and their country”, because they were “realized” in 1944. Moreover,
according to the opponents of the law its major weakness is the possibility to benefit
individuals who with their actions in the past “have challenged the identity of
Macedonian people and their country”. The Constitutional Court rejected the appeal of
the Union of Fighters [xvii], with its decision from December 2005, but the effective
application of the law was placed entirely in the hands of the executive power,
represented by the minister of Finance, Labor, Social Affairs and Interior.