The Constitutional Court (CC) deprived the National Anticorruption Center of the main instruments for testing the integrity of judges so that these activity will be blocked, the Center’s vice director Cristina Tarna said in the talk show “Fabrika” on Publika TV channel, IPN reports.

According to Cristina Tarna, even if the law on the testing of the professional integrity of judges was generally declared constitutional, the articles that were declared unconstitutional made it nonfunctional. “It is the same as if the law itself was declared unconstitutional. Those functionaries who expected to be subject to the test can now sleep tranquilly,” she stated.

She also said that the first results started to appear after the public servants began to be tested in 2014. “There were identified sophisticated corruption schemes about which we knew nothing. In some institutions, all the employees with responsible posts failed the test. Very serious problems were discovered. For the first time, some of the functionaries started to reveal that they met with bribery attempts. For the first time judges came to us to inform us about corruption attempts. There were seven cases of this kind. During this interval, things started to change, but the CC’s decision will prevent us from moving on,” said Cristina Tarna.

On the other hand, lawyer Vitalie Catana said the testing of the integrity is not an efficient method for eradicating corruption. “I’m a lawyer and know how things stand. The testing does not help fight corruption. Other ways should be found. Even if this method is recommended by such organizations as the OSCE, it may be no so effective,” he stated.

On April 16, the Constitutional Court ruled that the provisions of the law on the testing of the professional integrity of judges are constitutional, except for some articles. The Court’s president Alexandru Tanase said the state has the right to test the professional integrity of all the public functionaries, without exception, but the problem resides in the testing method and the institution that is empowered to do it.