The justice system of the Republic of Moldova necessitates a rethinking of the structure of the personnel of courts of law and maximum digitization of processes so as to reduce the burden borne by employees. There is now no necessity of increasing the number of judges or prosecutors, but the vacancies should be filled and work processes should be optimized. These are some of the conclusions reached by experts of the Legal Resources Center from Moldova (LRCM), who conducted a study entitled “Justice in the Republic of Moldova in Figures, 2022”, IPN reports.
LRCM chairman Vladislav Gribincea said the study shows that Moldova allocates more state budget funds for justice than Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia or Azerbaijan. “In 2020, the Republic of Moldova allocated for justice €15.7 per capita, which is much less than the Council of Europe average. However, compared with Armenia, Azerbaijan or Georgia, we can say that they allocate much less money, almost half less. It’s clear that if we look at Romania, we will see that the neighboring country spends 3.5 times more per capita for justice. Justice in the Republic of Moldova is financed rather well, but the allocated funds should be used more efficiently,” stated Vladislav Gribincea.
The study shows that the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice of Moldova have the smallest salaries among the 47 analyzed countries. Georgia pays by 18% more, Armenia by 30% more, while in Azerbaijan these judges have two times higher salaries than the judges in Moldova. Ukraine pays five time higher salaries to its Supreme Court of Justice judges.
“The increase in salaries of judges or even their doubling is justified, but it won’t be easy to explain this in the context of the current economic crisis. A solution at the moment is to raise the salaries of judges, but only of those who will pass the external assessment. Such a move will be easier accepted by the public and could be easier justified from budgetary viewpoint as great pressure will be exerted on the 2023 budget, but will yet enable to adjust the budgetary costs in the future,” said Vladislav Gribincea.
The study revealed that unlike novice judges, novice prosecutors in Moldova are remunerated better than in Armenia, Azerbaijan or Georgia, but worse than in Romania or Ukraine. At the same time, the prosecutors of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Moldova are paid worse than in most of the aforementioned countries.
“The number of practicing lawyers decreased at the end of 2021 and this is probably due to the fact that the Bar exams haven’t been staged for a long period and the taxes for lawyers increased. This made many lawyers to stop work. Currently, we have fewer than 2,100 practicing lawyers in the Republic of Moldova. The number of lawyers cannot be determined by the state. It is conditional on the amounts that the population can pay for these services,” said the LRCM chairman.
The study “Justice in the Republic of Moldova in Figures, 2022” is based on the 2022 Report of the Council of Europe’s European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice and on official data of the Republic of Moldova for 2022.
