Minister of Justice Sergiu Litvinenco considers the fact that Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo no longer wants to take part in the meetings of the Supreme Security Council is symbolical in a country in which corruption was declared the main threat to security. The minister made the statement after the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that Alexandr Stoianoglo requested the Constitutional Court to establish the constitutionality of the legal provisions concerning the prosecutor general’s membership in the SSC, IPN reports.

“By such a step, he showed that he gave up in the fight against corruption. He is neither the first, nor the last official who gave up. Maybe Alexandr Stoianoglo decided to allow the next prosecutor general to take part in the SSC meetings? Society banks a lot on the involvement of the prosecution service in this process. Moreover, this is even the service’s obligation. But you cannot force the person if this does not want and cannot...” Sergiu Litvinenco posted on Facebook.

In the last meeting of the SSC on August 10, in which the Council’s president reproached the prosecutor general for the absence of criminal proceedings against a number of persons, including representatives of the current parliamentary opposition, this also asked for a report on a number of pending criminal cases.  The PGO considers such an approach is inadmissible and against the law and it affects the principle of separation and balance of powers in the state and cannot be tolerated in the future. It ascertained that initially the Law on State Security No.618 of 31.10.1995 didn’t stipulate that the prosecutor general is a member of the SSC.

The amendments to the law were made at the suggestion of a group of Democratic MPs (legislative initiative No. 436 of 23.11.2016). According to the PGO, Parliament at that moment violated procedurally the constitutional norms concerning the lawmaking process. Also, the law runs counter to the Constitution as modern democracies do not know such practices.