Eight thousand euros. That is what "influence" on judges in Gostivar cost. According to the prosecutor's office, the president of the Basic Court, Eljesa Aliji, and a court administrator received bribes to promise a party in a civil dispute a favourable outcome - first 5,000 euros for a retrial, then another 3,000 for an intervention in the Gostivar Appeals Court. Together: 8,000 euros. Plus 800 euros extra for administrative services.

Aliji is now without a passport. The court has imposed precautionary measures: passport confiscated, ban on issuing new documents, ban on crossing the state border, obligation to report periodically to a designated official. The court administrator received the same measures. Detention - no. Free until trial.

The first man at the court

This is the first case in the country in which an acting president of a basic court is facing a publicly opened investigation for corrupt influence linked to court proceedings. The investigation covers the period from January 2023 to 2025. The charge: "receiving a reward for unlawful influence" - a criminal offence within the remit of the OJO for the prosecution of organised crime and corruption.

A question is raised that neither the prosecutor's office nor the court answers publicly: how many other parties in Gostivar have passed through the same window? Did this model operate for years? How is it possible for a court president to ask for a bribe directly from a party, and for no colleague and no administrator to report it - until someone finally paid the money and did not get the result?

The court justified the measures with one sentence: "it could not impose stricter measures than those proposed by the prosecutor's office." Which means the prosecutor's office did not ask for detention. Why? The risk of flight probably existed (hence the passport seizure), but the risk of influencing witnesses and evidence - the two suspects work at the same court - was not assessed as serious enough to justify a tougher measure.

Citizens turning up at the Gostivar court tomorrow will not be able to dodge the question: is justice here for sale? Aliji is formally suspended until the procedure ends, but the problem is not a single judge - the problem is that the situation reached the point where these schemes were possible. And that we are getting a look inside only because someone, in the end, did not get the money they paid for.