The bill on foreign intelligence and counterintelligence activity is an insult to the Venice Commission, said the leader of the Party of Development and Consolidation of Moldova (PDCM) Ion Chicu. According to the ex-Premier, the PAS government adopted this law despite all the recommendations formulated by European experts. In the absence of rigorous control over the activity of the Security and Intelligence Service (SIS), such an initiative turns the SIS into a political cudgel against those who do not share the government’s views, IPN reports.
Under the bill that was given a first reading by Parliament, the SIS will enjoy new powers and the Service’s officers will be able to wiretap and bug the phone conversations of people, to follow and supervise them in the absence of a court warrant. The leader of the PDCM Ion Chicu said the bill runs counter to all the democratic norms and was harshly criticized both by experts of the Venice Commission and by representatives of the National Anticorruption Center (NAC).
“The SIS is offered excessive powers and no control is instituted over this institution. I see the adoption of the given bill in the first reading as an insult to the Venice Commission. There is also the NAC appraisal of this bill, a clear recommendation from a state institution led by the representative of the government. The NAC also disapproved of it. A law that transforms the SIS into NKVD and Gestapo cannot be implemented. We are not in the 1930s with Stalin and Hitler. I don’t think this bill will be passed in such a variant,” Ion Chicu stated in the program “Résumé” on RliveTV channel.
The government explained that such a bill is necessary as there are foreign agents in Moldova, who plot against the country and endanger national security. “The Speaker of Parliament called me a foreign agent when I submitted the preliminary application to him. He sent me back five pages by which he explains that he has the right to level criticism and says that I encroach on his freedom of expression. I sued him. Such persons were named to posts by accident and they will soon realize what it means to say something without understanding what you say,” said the leader of the PDCM.
Former Premier Ion Chicu sued Speaker Igor Grosu after this named him the representative of the fifth column of the Russian Federation in a TV program.
