The Legal Resources Center recommends optimizing the prosecution service, strengthening the capacity of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office and liquidating or reorganizing the Chisinau Prosecutor’s Office. It also proposes liquidating the military and transport prosecutor’s offices. The suggestions are contained in a study concerning the optimization of the prosecution service and the workload of Moldovan prosecutors, carried out in the context of the implementation of the justice sector reform strategy, IPN reports.
Besides the Prosecutor General’s Office, there are 54 more prosecutor’s offices in Moldova. The Legal Resources Center says the workload of prosecutors in different prosecutor’s offices varies considerably. For this reason, it is recommended redistributing the posts of prosecutor between different prosecutor’s offices so as to ensure an equal workload for all the prosecutors. It is also recommended optimizing the district prosecutor’s offices and the judicial map.
In 2012, the 771 prosecutors were assisted by 363 persons, which is 0.47 posts of assisting personnel per prosecutor. In the rankings of the European countries with the lowest number of assisting employees related to the number of prosecutors, Moldova comes third, after Croatia and Russia. The authors of the study said it is absolutely necessary to increase the number of personnel assisting the prosecutor by at least 50% so as to obtain a better performance of the prosecution service without substantially increasing costs, given that the salaries of the auxiliary personnel are much lower than of prosecutors.
In the event held to present the study, Prosecutor General Corneliu Gurin said the study revealed the problems omitted by the authorities and represents an important step towards promoting the reform in the field.
Mircea Rosior, chairman of the Supreme Council of Prosecutors, said the fact that the study was conducted by persons from outside the system makes it more efficient. After its results are discussed, there will be identified the sensitive problems that need to be dealt with first.
Minister of Justice Oleg Efrim noted that the reform of the prosecution service cannot be regarded separately form the judicial map, which should be optimized, while such studies are needed when non-popular reforms are to be promoted.
The study was made with a view to implementing the justice sector reform strategy for 2011-2016, with financial support from the U.S. Embassy in Moldova.
