The accusations made by Vitalie Nagacevschi, the president of the organisation “Lawyers for Human Rights”, that there is a silent agreement between the government and the judiciary are erroneous, Judge Nicolae Clima, chairman of the Superior Council of Magistracy, told reporters on Friday. According to him, cases are randomly distributed to judges – they form a line at the beginning of each year and get the cases when their times come. If a judge falls sick or cannot hear the case for some other plausible reasons, it is taken by the judge that comes next on the list. Thus, Nagacevschi’s accusations that the most obedient judges get the most sensitive cases, while the rest get cases that arouse no interest among government officials, are groundless. Nicolae Clima maintains the Superior Council of Magistracy pays particular attention to judicial ethics. The Council will meet on November 29 to adopt an ethics code for judges. All the disciplinary derogations committed by judges are examined by the Council and, when needed, judges are penalised either disciplinary or financially. So far, disciplinary proceedings haven’t been initiated against the judges that heard cases which later reached the European Court. When asked how this situation is possible when Moldova has lost more than 90 cases in Strasbourg, Nicolae Clima said such cases are not necessarily a reason for penalising the respective judge, adding “we are still working on it”. Nicolae Clima said he regrets the rising number of cases lost at the European Court, but remarked that most of the complaints originate in 2003-2005. In many cases the State is found guilty of excessive length of proceedings, as the workload of a judge in Moldova is huge. According to Judge Clima, 450 practicing judges heard some 260,000 cases last year. A bill to increase the number of judges and assistants in lower courts is due to be examined by Parliament next week.