OBSTACLES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EXTRADITION PROCESS

Fatime Fetai, MA PhD Student, Public prosecutor in the Basic PPO Skopje /Faculty of Law "Iustinianus Primus" - Skopje

In spite of the numerous international and domestic acts that (are striving to fully) regulate the process of extradition of accused or convicted individuals, as well as the numerous bilateral agreements concluded between the Republic of North Macedonia and other countries, the results in practice are far from satisfactory. The paper, which consists of three parts, primarily focuses on the legal framework, i.e. the international and domestic acts related to international cooperation in criminal matters, or more precisely the extradition process, whereafter it continues with a review of several court cases in which the Republic of North Macedonia requests extradition of individuals accused or convicted in criminal proceedings, with a detailed description of all actions taken and/or failed to be taken by all actors in the process, the duration of the process, the legal mechanisms (ab)used for rejecting the requests and the consequences of not implementing the procedures for the judicial system and the state as a whole. Finally, after identifying (majority of) the obstacles in the implementation of the extradition process, the conclusion recommends further steps necessary for efficient implementation of the extradition process as one of critical procedures in a criminal case.

KEYWORDS: international co-operation, criminal procedure, extradition, case law.