Nadejda Hriptievschi, a member of the independent commission for assessing the integrity of the candidates for the posts of SCM and SCP member, said the latest resignations in the judicial system generate serious concern. The jurist admired that the resignations can be due to the upcoming assessment to which all the judges of the system will be subject, but noted that the vetting criteria are not as rigorous as those applying to the candidates for member of the Supreme Council of Magistracy or the Supreme Council of Prosecutors, IPN reports.
On Thursday, the Legal Resource Center announced that 19 of the 25 judges of the Supreme Court of Justice resigned and the Court’s work will be practically paralyzed as a result. Among those who resigned are the acting president of the Court Vladimir Timofti and judge Dorel Musteață, who also holds the post of acting chairman of the Supreme Council of Magistracy.
“Misters Timofti and Musteață are not the subjects of our assessment exercise as none of them is a candidate for member of the judicial or prosecution administrative bodies. The resignations cause serious concern. It would be good for those who resign to explain the factors that made them do this. There could be personal reasons too. I read that it was due to the assessment planned as part of the reform of the Supreme Court of Justice. It is presumed that given the large number of those who failed the pre-vetting test, the vetting could generate the same results. I consider such a conclusion is erroneous,” Nadejda Hriptievschi stated in the program “Reflection Points” on Vocea Basarabiei channel.
According to the jurist, the judges should not be afraid of the extraordinary assessment planned by the PAS government as the testing criteria are not similar to the pre-vetting ones that refer to the candidates for the CSM and CSP members.
“The assessment for the post of CSM or SCP member implies procedures and standards that are different from the criteria for assessing the working judges. The purpose is very different for these two categories. Within the pre-vetting, we assess the persons who will be members of the SCM and SCP. These persons musty meet the highest standards as they will be the persons who will take decisions on disciplinary issues. The standards are different with regard to a judge who needs to only examine the cases that are distributed to him/her,” stated Nadejda Hriptievschi.
So far, resignations have been tended by 20 of the 24 judges of the Supreme Court of Justice.
