The Constitutional Court (CC) exceeded its authority when it declared the law on the functioning of languages spoken on the territory of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic outdated. The practice of declaring a legislative act outdated exists in case law, but a competent body with such powers should exist in this regard, stated experts invited to the talk show “Key issue” on NTV Moldova channel, IPN reports.
“In the Republic of Moldova, no body has such powers – either the legislative body or the judiciary, not speaking about the Constitutional Court. In general, it is the prerogative of the body that adopted an act to decide if this act is outdated or not, which is Parliament in this case,” stated jurist Sergey Mishin. According to him, the CC assumes the role of legislative power. Furthermore, from legal viewpoint, the CC couldn’t have declared the law outdated as it can examine only the laws that appeared after the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova and this law on languages was adopted before the supreme law of the state.
Politologist Zurab Todua, ex-MP, said that after the law on the functioning of languages was declared outdated, the documents could no longer be translated into Russian, as the law provides. He also considers the CC abused its authority. “In this case, the CC assumed the role of Parliament. The legislature in our country decides which law lost its legal effects, which law continues to be applied, which one should be improved, etc. I think no jurist understands based on what the Court did this,” stated Zurab Todua, adding that the political situation will become tenser after this decision.
Political analyst Cornel Ciurea said the CC’s judgement is rather symbolical and does not have extended repercussions, but there are particular provisions that have concrete effects, such as the translation of legislative acts in Russian and the studying of the Russian language. The Moldovan people went through the russification process that included many negative moments and the diminution of the area of influence of the Russian language is welcome.
