The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday, October 16, fined the Moldovan Government in the case of “Tara and Poiata vs. Moldova” for violation of freedom of expression. The same day the Strasbourg Court pronounced other seven judgments against Moldova. In the case of “Tara and Poiata vs. Moldova” ECHR held that there had been a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention and obliged the Government to pay the plaintiffs EUR 4,500 for damages. The applicants resorted to ECHR after the domestic courts had ruled in favour of Victor Stepaniuc, the then leader of the Communist parliamentary group, in a trial against Tara newspaper concerning articles accusing the MP of corruption and mismanagement. In the other seven cases – Buianovschi v. Moldova, Deordiev and Deordiev v. Moldova, Marcu v. Moldova, Nadulisneac Ion v. Moldova, Tiberneac v. Moldova, Tiberneac Vasile v. Moldova, and Vitan v. Moldova – the State was found guilty of violating the right to a fair trial and property protection and was fined about EUR 30,000. The Government in Chisinau was found guilty of violating human rights in about 80 cases examined in Strasbourg, and was obliged to pay damages of about 1.5 million euros, which is the equivalent of more than 24 million lei. About one thousand applications from Moldovan nationals are waiting for their turn to be examined by the Court, which, according to some experts, is the highest number of applications per capita of population.