The Supreme Court of the Republic of North Macedonia, at the General Session held on 24.11.2023, adopted a Principle legal opinion regarding the deadline of 30 days for submitting a request for the initiation of the misdemeanor procedure, regarding which deadline there was no uniform jurisprudence on the question of whether this deadline should be considered preclusive or not.
Article 58 of the Law on Misdemeanors, which refers to the initiation of misdemeanor proceedings, in paragraph 1 of this article stipulates that the misdemeanor authority shall initiate misdemeanor proceedings ex officio or at the request of an authorized official in the bodies referred to in Article 83, paragraph (2) from this law.
Furthermore, in paragraph 2 of this article, it is stipulated that the authorized official is obliged to submit a request for initiation of misdemeanor proceedings within the shortest possible time, but no longer than 30 days from the day after the misdemeanor was ascertained, or after a report of a committed misdemeanor has been submitted, when there is a legal basis for it, when it is determined by technical means or after the notification of the injured party.
In addition, in article 83 paragraph 4 of the Law on Misdemeanors it is regulated that the authorized bodies from paragraph 2 of this article, are obliged within 30 days from the day after ascertaining the misdemeanor, or after a report by the injured party for a committed misdemeanor has been submitted, to file a request to initiate a misdemeanor procedure whenever there is a well-founded suspicion that a misdemeanor has been committed.
Namely, according to the principle legal opinion of the Supreme Court, the deadline is instructive and there can be no rejection of the request submitted after the expiry of the deadline – as a consequence, referring to the legal provision of Article 87 paragraph 2, point 5 of the Law on Misdemeanors.
Article 87 of the Law on Misdemeanors, which refers to the rejection of the request for the initiation of a misdemeanor procedure, in paragraph 2 provides when there are no conditions for the initiation of a misdemeanor procedure, i.e. it determines in which cases the request for the initiation of a misdemeanor procedure will be rejected by a decision.
In this regard, Article 87 of the Misdemeanors does not expressly provide that the expiration of the 30-day period for submitting the request for initiation of misdemeanor proceedings, is a reason for rejecting the same, which is why in the previous judicial practice the expiration of the 30-day period was brought under paragraph 2 point 5 of the same article: there are other legal reasons for which the misdemeanor procedure cannot be initiated.