The jurist who represents the interests of the national association “Copyright” in a trial against the mobile phone carrier Moldcell in the middle of February ascertained that a number of proofs disappeared from the case, such as documents and audio recordings of hearings held in the common law court.
“Copyright” won the case in the common law court and in the Appeals Court. The case reached the Supreme Court of Justice without a number of proofs. The association accuses the mobile phone carrier of not complying with the law on copyright and related rights and of not paying the appropriate remuneration to authors and other copyright holders in Moldova and abroad.
“We were very surprised to find out that the previous evidence that showed what sum wad to be paid by Moldcell to “Copyright” disappeared and other data that show the sum is 700 times lower appeared instead. This runs counter to the rulings of the first two courts of law,” the president of the national association “Copuyright” Liviu Știrbu stated in a news conference at IPN.
According to the jurist of “Copyright” Marcel Oțel, when asked why the audio recordings of hearings are absent, the Supreme Court of Justice responded that all the recordings were saved on local servers of courts of law. Respectively, to obtain the recordings, an application should be filed to the Chisinau City Court.
The response of the Chisinau City Court says that of 13 held hearings, they kept the recordings of only the last three hearings. “The other hearings where the figures and calculations were discussed, where confirmatory documents were annexed by Moldcell, where there was presented evidence based on which the common law court and the Appeals Court passed their judgments disappeared,” stated Marcel Oțel.
The jurist said that when this fact was ascertained, “Copyright” asked the SCJ to apply the procedure for reconstructing the lost evidence. Under the law, this is to be done by the Chisinau City Appeals Court. The Appeals Court requested the SCJ to remit the case for examining the application to reconstruct the documents. “Copyright” submitted a similar application to the SCJ. However, on March 2 the SCJ responded that the application will be examined together with the admissibility of the appeals declared by the lawyer of Moldcell.
“It looks as if the SCJ, at all costs, wants to examine and to solve the case by declaring Moldcell’s appeal as admissible and to remit the case back for retrial,” noted Marcel Oțel, wondering if this loss of evidence wasn’t intentional. He said the SCJ launched an internal inquiry into the disappearance of evidence from the case.