Professor of Law at the Stip University and member of the Presidium of Levica, Dimitar Apasiev noted that the negotiations conducted by the Macedonian and Greek government to change the name are totally legally speaking unlawful and illegitimate. According to Apasiev, the Macedonian Constitution only entitles the president to negotiate, negotiate and conclude international agreements, and not the government.
– These ongoing negotiations are totally legally illegitimate. In fact, the Macedonian constitutional system foresees, to be professionally expressed, a dual executive power. This means that we do not have a president and only a prime minister. Instead, we have a president and a prime minister. The Prime Minister elects the assembly, the president of the state as head of state is elected by the citizens of the country. And from here, the Constitution gives him the authority to negotiate and conclude international agreements. Not the government, no way in any shape or form the government. Only in very limited scope such as technical matters that deals with resources in education, culture can the Government negotiate as it says – he says.
He says Zaev’s advisers and the Foreign Minister, because of their shockingly poor knowledge of the laws, forget that they have no legal basis to conclude such agreements. It is about the Law on Conclusion, Ratification and Execution of International Agreements. According to Article 3 of this Law, Apasiev says that the international agreements on behalf of the Republic are concluded by the President of the Republic of Macedonia, and not by the Prime Minister.
– Everyone is forgetting this, especially the advisors who you mentioned to Zaev. All of them are quite weak in their legal capacities, because they forget or are pretending to forget a law passed in the Kiro Gligorov era when President of the Assembly was Tito Petkovski. It is a decree for the proclamation of the Law on Concluding, Ratifying and Executing International Agreements. Under Article 3 of this Law, the international agreements on behalf of the Republic are concluded by the President of the Republic of Macedonia. Not the prime minister, the president. So I believe that, unlike the Law on Languages which is also unconstitutional, the President was only a co-fictitious figure in the vetting procedure, suspended in the process. Here, the president is primus, the prime minister is second, do you understand? So the president is the main player. You can not just brief or pretend to brief Ivanov, he is the one in charge, he guides the moves, from here I do not believe that the president will sign such an agreement, whatever Zaev comes up with – concluded Apasiev.
