North Macedonia’s Constitutional Court has postponed a ruling on a controversial law concerning the use of minority languages, triggering a protest and a new round of ethnic tensions in the tiny Balkan country. The 2019 law made Albanian a second official language in areas with a significant population of ethnic Albanians.
President of the North Macedonia ’s Constitutional Court, Darko Kostadinovski, votes for the agenda duirng a session to review a ruling on a law concerning the use of minority languages at the Constitutional Court building in Skopje, North Macedonia , Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024.
Court officials said the delay will allow further deliberations and input from foreign experts and could take up to three months. Several hundred demonstrators joined a protest outside the court Wednesday organized by the DUI, an ethnic Albanian opposition party. The party warned that any rollback would destabilize the country’s fragile ethnic balance.
The law has drawn criticism from both domestic and international observers, including the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters.Critics also argue that it fails to clarify whether certain provisions apply solely to Albanian or to other minority languages, such as Turkish, Roma, and Serbian.
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