The police in Chisinau said that though they launched an inquiry, during a month they couldn’t find the owner who parked and continues to park his car in central Chisinau by violating all the parking and common sense rules and the people’s right to the public area – across the sidewalk.
Postscript to the feature
Exactly one month ago, on April 8, the IPN News Agency published a feature about a case of serious and long-lasting violation of the rules of parking a Range Rover with the license number CPG 044. The feature report was titled “Public area appropriated and co-existence laws violated. One case in a million, but one as a million”. It was indeed an unordinary case. The car has been parked across the sidewalk, at 68 Mateevici St, so that many of the pedestrians have to cross that area by endangering their lives. The car is parked about one meter of the road sign showing that parking and stopping are banned, in front of an important diplomatic office, with the back about 30-40 centimeters from the booth where there should be guardians, carabineers or police officers who must protect the foreign diplomats from possible offenders. It can be anticipated that if, one morning, the driver starts the car and moves backward instead of forward after a difficult night, the vehicle can crush the courageous defenders of the diplomatic office together with the booth. Moreover, the place is surrounded by a chain and metallic poles so that even when the car is missing, the ordinary pedestrians cannot pass there and canon benefit from their rights to use a public area that belongs exclusively to them.
The Representative Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (ICNUR) in Moldova, which is based in that building, has told IPN that the car parked on the sidewalk does not belong to them. It is owned by a dweller living in the yard. Moreover, the only car belonging to the UN Agency is parked legally in front of the head office of Gazprom that is situated nearby. Representatives of the Chisinau authorities confirmed, after travelling to the scene, that the car is parked illegally and that it is within the competence of the police to identify the culprit and to restore the people’s right to free movement, without dangers to health. IPN informed the Ministry of the Interior, the National Patrolling Inspectorate and the Chisinau City Hall about this case.
After the feature was published, representatives of the National Patrolling Inspectorate told us that an inquiry was launched following our notification. But the police were unable to identify the owner of the car parked illegally.
According to the press service of the National Patrolling Inspectorate, employees of the institution visited the place where the car is parked. They established that the car is indeed parked illegally and hinders the people’s access to the sidewalk. The same source said the police officers checked the license number of the car and found out that the vehicle was bought in leasing and this prevented this from finding the owner. But it said that the search goes on. The response we received from the National Patrolling Inspectorate said that when the owner is identified, he will be informed about the violations committed by him and will be fined.
The answer made us think that it is very hard to identify the name of a person who bought a car in leasing. We wanted to convince ourselves of this and phoned a number of Chisinau leasing companies. Companies’ jurists told us that such information can be obtained by private individuals without serious problems, based on a request. Under the legislation, the leasing company is to provide an answer within 15 workdays. In cases investigated by the police, the information can be received very quickly. The jurists said that the police are probably not interested in finding the owner of the car parked illegally, while the started case is probably gathering dust in the drawers of the National Patrolling Inspectorate.
One day before publishing this postscript, we returned to the press service of the National Patrolling Inspectorate to see if something changed. We received promises that they will check, but after that nobody answered the phone even if we insisted.
As there is no truthful information, we have to resort to ‘valuable judgments’ and to simple questions. For example: the police were unable and didn’t want to identify the owner of the car or they wanted and identified him, but didn’t want to tell us. Or, they wanted to tell us, but couldn’t as the owner turned out to be ‘tougher’ than the police. It is known that persons from certain categories are fond of special, ‘symbolic’ or personalized license numbers. Thus, letter C from the car’s number can mean Chisinau, PG – the first letters of the man’s name and surname, the name of the institution where he works or something else. What prevents the police from asking the ICNUR Representative Office who is the dweller living in the yard? Or, what hinders them from entering that small yard? How much time do the police need to start inquiring who the metal poles that continue to prevent the pedestrians from passing there belong to? There are also other questions.
Alina Marin. IPN
