People who will insult teachers risk being punished with fines of up to 1,250 lei. This is provided in an amendment proposed by Liliana Nicolaescu-Onofrei, chairwoman of the parliamentary commission for culture, education, research, youth, sports and mass-media, to a draft law to amend the Criminal Code and the Contravention Code, which was given a second reading by Parliament, IPN reports.

The amendment also stipulates that premeditated damaging of honor, dignity or professional reputation, accompanied by acts of hooliganism or bodily injury, will be punished with a fine of up to 7,500 lei or with at most 15 days of arrest.

An amendment proposed by MPs Lilian Carp and Igor Chiriac was also accepted. This aims to strengthen the regulatory framework on the ensuring of state security and effective combating of criminal activity that can affect the sovereignty, independence, unity, indivisibility of security or defense capability of the Republic of Moldova. Respectively, the notion of treason will be regulated more clearly in the national legislation.

The draft law to amend the Criminal Code and the Contravention Code also provides for the extension of the statute of limitations, which will increase from two to three years and will be interrupted once the file is sent to court. The bill also allows to adjust and complement the normative framework with new environmental crimes, to ensure environmental protection, and also to introduce new components of crimes to protect the person: identity forgery and identity theft. The list of cybercrimes will be reviewed and adjusted.

For the second reading, the draft law was merged with two other legislative initiatives. It goes to a document drafted by a group of PAS MPs, which aims to toughen up penalties for persons who drive under the influence of alcohol and cause road accidents, and a legislative initiative of MP of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists Diana Caraman.