4.  The applicant was born in 1951 and lives in Kičevo.
5.  On 2 February 2010 the applicant submitted a written statement in which he denied that he had collaborated with the State security bodies after 1944. Such a statement was to be submitted to the Fact Verification Commission (“the Lustration Commission”) by public officials and was required under the Additional Requirement for Public Office Act of 2008 (“the 2008 Lustration Act”). By a decision of 12 September 2011, the Lustration Commission confirmed that the applicant satisfied the additional condition for the performance of the office of a judge, having confirmed that he had not collaborated with the security bodies of the past regime.
6.  On 16 November 2012 the Lustration Commission, on a request by its chairman, reopened the lustration proceedings in respect of the applicant and, on the basis of “new facts and evidence”, quashed its decision of 12 September 2011. The Commission’s decision, which referred to submissions made by a third person (namely a certain Z.T., who was identified in connection with the chairman’s request) in its introduction, relied on three files concerning three people (one of whom was Z.T.), from which it established that the applicant – referred to in those files as an “operational liaison” (оперативна врска) – had provided relevant information to the State security bodies in the 1970s. The relevant parts of those notes read as follows:
“... I [the handler] met with [the applicant], a law student [at the time], on two occasions on which he expressed a wish to collaborate with the State Security Office (Служба за државна безбедност) ...
... the relationship (пријателската врска) – [the applicant] informed me that [code name] had exchanged letters with ...
... the conversation with [the applicant] was on my [the handler’s] initiative ... the source [the applicant] was used occasionally, during his stay in Skopje. He was reassigned for use to ...”
7.  The Lustration Commission found that, under the Law on determining conditions limiting the exercise of public office, access to documents and the publication of information about cooperation with State security bodies (“the 2012 Lustration Act”, which had replaced the 2008 Lustration Act), the applicant had collaborated with the State security bodies. Its decision stated, inter alia:
“... [the applicant] had provided the security bodies with information about certain people of interest for the State Security Office ... on the basis of documentary evidence, it was established that the State Security Office had used [the applicant] as an operational liaison ...
... the Lustration Commission established that [the applicant], as a secret collaborator, informant or operational liaison, [in the process of] creating and storing information about certain people, by which their rights and freedoms had been violated on political or ideological grounds, had collaborated with the State security services in a conscious, secret, organised and continuous manner, in return for favours in getting promoted, by which the condition specified in sections 4 and 18 of the [2012 Lustration Act] is fulfilled.”
8.  After the Lustration Commission published the above decision (and the notes of the security bodies referred to in the decision) on its website, the applicant requested (making a non-disclosure statement) and obtained a redacted copy of those documents, in the form in which they were published on the Commission’s website. They were redacted to withhold the identities of the handler(s) who had drawn them up and the third persons in respect of whom the applicant had allegedly provided information to the security bodies. The documents were not signed by the applicant or the handler. The applicant also asked to be provided with a complete and unredacted copy (целосна копија) of those documents.
9.  In a written statement of 27 November 2012, certified by a notary public, P.K., the handler who had drawn up some of the notes to which the Lustration Commission had referred in its decision, stated, inter alia:
“... I drafted [the notes] (содржината) concerning [the applicant] without [his] knowledge, according to my interpretation (по мое видување) and following a spontaneous conversation that he had not requested, let alone intended to be used for a role as a secret collaborator or informant. I avow that [the applicant] was not recorded or registered by the security bodies as such ... Neither I nor my colleagues, as far as I know, had requested that he be registered as a secret collaborator, informant, operational liaison ... neither had [the applicant] made a request to collaborate with the security service ...
I submit that the contents of the official records are not truthful (веродостојни) and at times [the applicant] had not provided the information in any organised manner, i.e. ... he had not been an organised liaison with the State Security Office ...”
10.  On 30 November 2012 the applicant challenged the Commission’s decision before the Administrative Court. He complained that, inter alia, the Lustration Commission had not held an oral hearing and it had not provided sufficient reasoning for its findings, in particular to show that his alleged collaboration had satisfied the criteria specified in section 18 of the 2012 Lustration Act. In support of this complaint, he referred to P.K.’s statement, which he appended to his claim. He also argued that according to the documents in his case file, no measures had been taken against the persons in respect of whom he had allegedly provided information to the security bodies. He further challenged the veracity and authenticity of the documents in question, claiming that only copy documents had been admitted into evidence, that they had not been signed by the handler or himself and that no official stamp had been affixed on them. In that connection, he subsequently submitted a letter from the Intelligence Service (Управа за безбедност и контраразузнавање) dated 2013, in which it was confirmed that the applicant had not been registered in its records and that the documents used in the impugned proceedings had not been from its archives. Given the complexity of the case, the applicant requested that the court hold a public and oral hearing in order to establish the relevant facts. In that regard he requested that the court hear oral evidence from P.K. and an expert (стручен помагач), V.P., a university professor and former intelligence officer, regarding the reliability of the documentary evidence against the applicant and whether he could be regarded as a collaborator within the meaning of the 2012 Lustration Act. In this respect, he submitted a copy of a statement made by V.P. and published on a news portal in which V.P. had underlined the qualitative criteria of such collaboration and the difference between “an informant” and “a collaborator”. In that statement V.P. defined “an informant” as “a person who had not established a relationship of collaboration (соработнички однос), but had provided information to the security services without having signed a collaboration agreement”.
11.  At a hearing held in private, and in the absence of the parties, on 20 December 2013, the Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s claim. Referring to the information in the relevant documents (see paragraph 6 above), which it found truthful (having compared the copy documents in the applicant’s case file with the originals), the court confirmed the Lustration Commission’s findings that the applicant had collaborated with the security services in a conscious, secret, organised and continuous manner as a secret informant, notably as an operational liaison. The relevant parts of the decision read as follows:
“[the applicant] had followed, provided and transferred information about people ... whereby their rights and freedoms had been violated on political or ideological grounds during the communist era ... irrespective of whether [those people] had been criminally prosecuted.
... [the applicant] had agreed to cooperate with the State Security Office. His friendly relationship with the handler did not preclude collaboration within the meaning of the law, and indeed such a relationship suggests that the collaborator knew to whom and why he had been providing information. For these reasons, the court does not accept (не ја прифати) the certified statement appended to the claim.
The court made its decision at a hearing held in private because the Commission had correctly established the relevant facts on the basis of written material and [the applicant] had not submitted any evidence that led to different facts.”
12.  On 24 January 2014 the applicant requested that the Lustration Commission grant him access to the original documents in his case file. In reply, the Commission informed him that the originals had been returned to the State Archives.
13.  The applicant appealed against the above-mentioned decision of the Administrative Court reiterating his complaints and arguing that that court had not held an oral hearing at which it could hear the testimony of the parties, P.K. and V.P., in order to establish as a fact whether there had been any collaboration within the meaning of the 2012 Lustration Act, that is whether the applicant’s actions had been conscious, secret, organised and continuous. The reasoning provided by the lower bodies in that respect had not been sufficient. Furthermore, there was no evidence that in return for providing information he had obtained any favours in getting promoted, which was a requirement for the alleged collaboration to fall within the meaning of section 18(4) of the 2012 Lustration Act. On the other hand, there was evidence that the materials on which the impugned decisions were based had not been reliable (see paragraph 9 above) and that he had not been aware that the information would reach the State Security Office. The authenticity of the files used against him had also been compromised in that they had not been from the archives of the Intelligence Service on the one hand, but that they had seemingly been drawn up by handlers at the State Security Office – which was the predecessor of the Intelligence Service – on the other hand. Furthermore, they had been admitted into evidence as copy documents, without having their authenticity confirmed by the security bodies. He asked for an oral hearing to be held.
14.  At a hearing held in private, and in the absence of the parties, on 12 June 2014, the Higher Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld the lower court’s decision without hearing the testimony of the witnesses proposed by the applicant. The court confirmed the findings of the lower authorities after it had verified that the contents of the documents in the applicant’s case file, admitted as copy documents, were identical to the originals from the State Archives. It held that, owing to the applicant’s conduct, the human rights and freedoms of others had been violated. The court added:
“Taking into consideration that the Lustration Commission carries out only a verification of facts to determine if there has either been collaboration or no collaboration with State security bodies, reports drawn up by handlers in [such bodies] are to be regarded as facts”.
15.  On 15 July 2014 the State Judicial Council declared that the applicant’s position as a judge had been terminated (престанок на вршење на судиската функција).
16.  On 13 November 2015 the applicant submitted audio recordings and a transcript of taped telephone conversations which allegedly involved the then chairman of the Lustration Commission and a member of parliament from the ruling political party. The material concerned conversations in which that member of parliament informed the chairman of the Lustration Commission that certain material regarding the applicant had been submitted before the Commission by Z.T. and asked that the proceedings be conducted as quickly as possible. The applicant contended that on 6 April 2015 the audio material was made public by the then political opposition in the respondent State and was also made available online.