The Presidium of Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) established a special court for the implementation of this law, which came into effect on 3 January 1945.
[8] During the World War II, Bulgaria annexed the Yugoslav province called Vardar Banovina, encompassing most of modern North Macedonia.
[25] On January 3, 1945, the newspaper Nova Makedonija published the newly adopted Law on the Trial of Crimes against Macedonian National Honour.
[26] The law provided for a number of sanctions: deprivation of civil rights, imprisonment with forced labour, confiscation of property, and in cases where it was deemed that the accused might be sentenced to death, it was envisaged that they would be handed over to a "competent court".
The law is a precedent in European legal history, as such legislation was not adopted in the People's Republic of Slovenia, which was subjected to forced Italianization and Germanization during the war.
[36] The law influenced new generations to grow up with strong anti-Bulgarian sentiments,[37][38] which increased to the level of state policy.
Although some researchers believe that it continued to be in force until 1991, when the present North Macedonia gained independence from the former Yugoslavia,[40][41][42] according to a legal analysis of Macedonian non-governmental activists, it is much more likely that it was abolished in February 1948.These people who held on to their Bulgarian identity faced strong hostility from both the authorities and the rest of the population.