One of the hardest trials of recent years is beginning at the court in Kumanovo. Taking the dock is 25-year-old T.B. from the village of Malotino, known to the public as the serial killer from Staro Nagoričane. The indictment charges him with four murders and two attempted murders - all victims women.

The case shook the Kumanovo region and the whole country for months. The series of attacks on women in and around Staro Nagoričane created an atmosphere of fear, and the questions about how one man could go on for so long before being stopped remain open. The trial now has to provide the answers that the victims' families have been waiting for months.

Behind every number in the indictment stands a life extinguished and a family that won't get its own back. That's precisely why this trial isn't just a legal procedure, but also a test for the institutions - whether the system that was supposed to protect these women will manage, at least now, to secure them justice. The responsibility lies not only with the man in the dock, but with everything that allowed the series to go on.

The court process is only beginning and will show how solid the prosecution's evidence is. But one thing is already clear: every delay, every procedural game, every postponed hearing will be another blow to those who lost their nearest. Justice that comes slowly for the victims of such violence often comes too late as well.