The Framework of Criminal Law

Legislation on Bias-motivated Violence: None

Bias-motivated Violent Crimes as Specific Offenses	Bias as an Express General Aggravating Factor	Bias as an Aggravating Factor in Specific Common Crimes

Bias Types Covered by Provisions on Aggravating Circumstances: N/A

Race/National Origin/Ethnicity	Religion	Sexual Orientation	Gender	Disability	Other

The Criminal Code of Macedonia does not contain any general provisions that expressly enable the racist or other bias motives of the offender to be taken into account by the courts as an aggravating circumstance when sentencing.

According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance’s (ECRI) Third Report on Macedonia, the Macedonian authorities claim it is within the judge’s discretion to consider racist motivations and assign higher penalties in such cases. ECRI reported that “there do not, however, seem to be many, if any, examples of judges having used their discretion in this manner.”[1]

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[1] ECRI, “Third Report on The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” para. 27, adopted on June 25, 2004 and released on February 15, 2005, http://hudoc.ecri.coe.int/XMLEcri/ENGLISH/Cycle_03/03_CbC_eng/MKD-CbC-III-2005-4-ENG.pdf.