Today, May 18 at 4:30 PM, thousands of Albanian students will gather in front of the Stone Bridge in Skopje to demand the right for the bar exam to be held in Albanian. The slogan of the protest is “Unite with the students – all together”, emphasizing the need for respect for language rights in the bar exams.
The protest comes after the rejection of the students’ request by the current Minister of Justice, Igor Filkov, and is the second organized by Albanian students this year. Since Sunday, many public figures have expressed their support, including Ramush Haradinaj, singer Shkurte Fejza, the Albanian ambassador to Skopje, as well as representatives of the PDK.
On April 6, 2026, a similar protest was held in Skopje, where thousands of Albanian students and citizens demanded respect for the right to use the Albanian language in legal proceedings. This forced Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski to declare that the government was working on a solution and that a concrete proposal would be forthcoming very soon.
According to the Law on the Bar Exam in North Macedonia, there is no restriction that requires the exam to be taken only in Macedonian. The Law on the Use of Languages, adopted in 2019, obliges state institutions to allow the use of Albanian if at least 20% of citizens speak this language.
Article 2 and Article 5 of this law clearly stipulate that state institutions and courts must enable the use of the Albanian language in all official procedures.
A draft proposal that would allow the bar exam to be taken in Albanian was ready in 2024, but due to changes in the parliamentary and government composition, it was removed from the Assembly agenda and was no longer discussed by the current government. Since the entry into force of the law on the use of languages, North Macedonia has had four Ministers of Justice: Bojan Mari?i?, Nikola Tupan?evski, Krenar Lloga and currently Igor Filkov.
The students demand that the law be fully implemented and that every Albanian citizen be able to take the bar exam in their own language, without administrative or political obstacles. Today’s protest aims to increase pressure on the government and ensure that the linguistic rights of Albanian students are respected.