Macedonia 2001
The Macedonian constitution of 2001 was a heavily amended version of the 1991 constitution. In August 2001, representatives from the two main ethnic Macedonian political parties and two main ethnic Albanian political parties signed the Ohrid peace accord. The peace accord ended seven months of violence between ethnic Albanian guerillas and the Macedonian government and called for the development of a new constitution. Representatives from the European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United State and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) brokered the peace accords and oversaw the constitutional changes.
The peace accord negotiations developed a set of constitutional changes that the Macedonian government would implement to improve the civil rights of minority ethnic Albanians. These essential features included a revision of the preamble, official recognition of the Albanian language, and an expansion of local government power. Amnesty for ethnic Albanian rebels accompanied the required constitutional reforms. The negotiations also set forth a timetable for drafting and implementation of the constitutional reforms. However, the Macedonian parliament ultimately failed to follow the timetable in its implementation of the reforms.
The Macedonian parliament created a sub-committee to rewrite the constitution as determined by the peace accord. Preparation of the initial draft took twenty days. The draft of proposed amendments reached the parliament for debate and voting in late September 2001. After considerable debate, the parliament approved the principles of the proposed constitutional amendments on September 24, 2001. The parliament then entered into intense debate about the language of the specific proposed amendments. At one point, the parliament suspended debate when deputies from the main Macedonian party announced a one-day boycott in protest of what it perceived to be a failure by international organizations to keep the peace in former rebel-held areas. The final debate on the draft amendments began on November 12, 2001. Parliament approved the amendments on November 15, 2001. The 120 deputies first voted on the individual amendments and then voted to approve the entire package of amendments with a vote of 94 in favor, 13 against. This vote met the 2/3 approval margin needed to amend the constitution. The amendments entered into force the same day. Representatives from the European Union and the United States successfully prevented a boycott of the vote by the main ethnic Albanian political party that threatened to unravel the peace accord.