The Parliament’s legal commission for appointments and immunities will draft a bill to amend and supplement the Constitution so that this allows for the direct election of judges by the people. A draft decision to this effect was adopted by the MPs in the October 11 sitting. The opposition parliamentary groups criticized the initiative, describing it as populist, IPN reports.

Bill author, Democratic MP Sergiu Sârbu said a number of initiatives aimed at improving judiciary procedures and increasing responsibility in the system were promoted during the last few years. Decisive measures are needed to restore the people’s trust and to make maximally responsible those who do justice in the name of the law. In the U.S., the judges are chosen by the people. There are both advantages and disadvantages of such a procedure and these should be analyzed, but it will be hard to ensure veritable changes in the justice sector without decisive measures.

In his speech, Liberal-Democratic MP Iurie Țap said the justice sector reform is torpedoed and this initiative that he considers unfounded is superficial and is aimed at distracting attention from the serious problems faced by Moldova.

Socialist MP Vasile Bolea noted there are over 400 judges in Moldova and it is not clear how these will be elected by the people and how the right to choose judges of the Moldovan citizens aboard will be ensured.

According to Communist MP Oleg Reidman, the authors of the initiative want to show the foreign partners that they follow the correct path, but the current legislature had enough time to formulate such proposals and should not do something like this is a hurry now.

Liberal MP Ion Casian stated the initiative is populist and by this the failure of the reforms done so far in the justice sector is recognized. He said the Liberals will not form part of this commission and will not vote in favor of the given initiative.

When being put to the vote, the draft decision was supported by most of the attending MPs. Thus, the bill to amend and supplement the Constitution so that this allows for the direct election of judges by the people is to be presented to Parliament within 30 days.