The fact that the Republic of Moldova allocates an important part of its budget for the justice sector does not necessarily mean that the allocated resources are sufficient. In 2018, about €35 million was allocated for justice, while in 2020 the sum was raised to 44 million, which is 1.6% of the public budget and is higher than the Council of Europe average, according to a report by the Legal Resources Center from Moldova (CRJM), IPN reports.
CRJM legal adviser Victoria Mereuță said the sum allocated per inhabitant in 2018 was of about €13, while in 2022 was approximately €16. Compared with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the sum allocated in Moldova is almost twice higher, but is much lower than in Russia, Bulgaria, Romania or the Baltic countries. The gross annual pay of judges at the start of the career in 2020 was €12,533. Even if it rose by about 20% on the salary of 2018, it is anyway the lowest in the 46 countries analyzed in the report of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice. The salaries of judges must be raised indeed. The situation of prosecutors is comparable. In 2018, the gross annual pay of these was €10,612, while in 2020 it rose to €11,355.
CRJM president Vlad Gribincea said the Republic of Moldova in 2018 had 16 judges per 100,000 people, while in 2020 this coefficient decreased to 15 judges. The reason is that a large number of judges left the system, while others weren’t yet employed. In the Council of Europe, the average is 16 judges for all the countries. If Moldova has all the available vacancies filled, it will have 19 judges per 100,000 people. As to the number of prosecutors, there are 24 prosecutors per 100,000 people. The CoE average is of 11-12 prosecutors.
The number of lawyers decreased from 78 lawyers per 100,000 people in 2018 to 70 in 2020. The average period for solving a case in court was of 271 days in 2018 and of 324 days in 2020. The average is lower than in the CoE member states.
Minister of Justice Sergiu Litvinenco believes the study should be taken into account when the reform agenda and the public policies are designed. The Ministry is interested in a study of the application of penalties in acts of corruption, which is the top problem in the Republic of Moldova. The conclusions of the given analysis will eventually determine legislative amendments for changing particular things if the problem is legislative in character.
