Jolevski takes over the Higher Prosecutor's Office in Bitola - four years after he himself nominated the suspect Vezirovski

The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Bitola has a new boss, but not new faces around whom the story revolves. At its session on Tuesday, the Council of Public Prosecutors appointed Antonio Jolevski as acting higher public prosecutor, replacing Peco Vezirovski - the prosecutor against whom the Public Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime and Corruption opened proceedings on October 7 for accepting a reward for unlawful influence.

The decision came after the Skopje Basic Criminal Court notified the Council that Vezirovski had been given a precautionary measure: a ban on performing the duties of his post. The Council revoked the decision that had made him acting head and installed Jolevski in his place.

What Vezirovski is suspected of. According to prosecutors, special investigative measures produced evidence that he used his real influence and official position to sway fellow prosecutors and judges in at least four separate cases - securing lighter sentences or a more favourable position for suspects and defendants. His name had also come up publicly in connection with the return of the passport of businessman Borče Markovski, owner of Markovski Company, who is charged with abuses in a public procurement at the REK Bitola power plant.

And who is the new man. Jolevski is a veteran prosecutor, former head of the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Bitola and president of the Council of Public Prosecutors from 2021 to 2023. It was precisely as president of that Council, in 2022, that he nominated Vezirovski as acting head of the Higher Prosecutor's Office in Bitola. Four years later - he is succeeding him.

His term on the Council was also marked by the case of prosecutor Lenče Ristoska. In December 2023 the Commission for Prevention and Protection against Discrimination found direct, continued discrimination by the Council in her professional advancement. Jolevski challenged that opinion before the Administrative Court, which rejected his lawsuit in July 2024. In October 2024 he was elected a prosecutor at, of all places, the Higher Prosecutor's Office in Bitola.

None of this means Jolevski did anything unlawful. But a system that is supposed to restore trust in the prosecution is responding to a scandal with the man who, four years ago, nominated the suspect for that very post. Did anyone on the Council stop to ask whether this was the best choice? And does the judiciary really have no other names besides the ones that have been rotating through its armchairs for years?