The Republic of Moldova was condemned by the ECHR for violating the right to a fair trial in the case of the former magistrate from the Orhei Court, Vasile Selevestru, who was dismissed from office in 2014. The Court found that the disciplinary procedure carried out against the magistrate did not respect the guarantees of independence and impartiality. The state is to pay damages of 5,900 euros to the son of the former judge, reports IPN.
According to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, Vasile Selevestru was released from his position in March 2014, through a decision of the Disciplinary Board of Judges. He was reproached for not respecting the deadlines for examining several cases, for drafting decisions and communicating them to the parties. In another case, the magistrate was also sanctioned with a reprimand for similar delays.
The former judge contested the sanctions at the Superior Council of Magistracy, invoking the exceeding of the legal term for their application and the lack of independence of the Council, which included the Minister of Justice and the Prosecutor General. Subsequently, the Supreme Court of Justice rejected his action, arguing that it could only verify the observance of the procedure for adopting the CSM decisions, not the validity of the sanctions.
The ECHR has established that the presence of the Minister of Justice and the Prosecutor General in the composition of the SCM affected the guarantees of independence and impartiality of the body. At the same time, the Court found that the limited verification carried out by the CSJ could not remedy these deficiencies, as the court did not have the competence to examine the facts attributed to the magistrate, their legal classification and the proportionality of the sanctions.
Thus, the European judges referred to the decision made in 2023 in the Catana case against the Republic of Moldova, in which they identified similar deficiencies. Therefore, the ECHR found a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial.
Vasile Selevestru passed away in October 2018, and his son, Petru Selevestru, continued the proceedings before the ECHR. The Court ordered the payment of 3,600 euros for moral damages and 2,300 euros for legal costs. At the same time, it rejected the claim of approximately 67,760 euros for material damages, representing the salaries that the former magistrate could have collected if he had not been dismissed from his position. The ECHR’s decision is final, and the state must pay the awarded sums within three months.
