The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has ruled that the state must pay 3,465 euros to the former head of the Security and Counter-Intelligence Directorate, Vladimir Atanasovski, as compensation for the detention and house-arrest measures in the case known as the "April 27 Organisers."

The sum, taken as a mere figure, is not large - but the message behind it is bigger than the amount. When an international court concludes that detention measures were unjustified enough to warrant damages, that is a verdict not only on one case, but on the way the domestic judiciary behaved. Every such payment is a bill footed by all citizens - for mistakes made by institutions that were supposed to protect rights, not violate them.

The "April 27" case is among the hardest in recent Macedonian history - the events in Parliament in 2017, the charges of endangering the constitutional order, the trials that dragged on for years. That part of those proceedings now comes back from Strasbourg with rulings against the state opens an uncomfortable question: how many domestic decisions will hold up once they are examined under a European magnifying glass?

The answer to that question is not only legal but financial. Every Strasbourg ruling the state loses means money out of the budget - the same budget that builds schools, roads and hospitals. The question we rarely ask out loud is: who bears responsibility when an institution loses in Strasbourg? So far, the answer is - no one in particular. We all pay, no one answers.