The authors of the bill that introduces new state taxes, including payments for summoning witnesses to court or for putting off hearings, said these taxes are designed to discourage abusive postponements of hearings and non-presentation of participants at the trial. For their part, judges and lawyers consider the bill seriously violates the access to justice and will cause chaos in courts of law, IPN reports, quoting RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service.
On December 29, 2022, the MPs gave a first reading to the bill concerning the state tax. Under this, a special tax that is transferred to the court is introduced for all the civil and administrative lawsuits. The fixed tax of 200 lei called “stamp tax” will be paid by all the participants in hearings, except for the public authorities. A tax of 400 lei will be paid for the request to replace a judge in civil and administrative proceedings or to transfer the case to another court. The same sum will be paid for the request to explain the court decision.
The courts will also start to levy taxes for the postponement of hearings. For the justified request to put off a hearing in a civil or administrative case, the applicant will initially pay 100 lei, the second time – 400 lei, the third time – 800 lei, each next time – 3,200 lei. In contravention cases, for the repeated postponement of a hearing, the tax will be 200 lei. The third and each next request will cost 1,600 lei.
The bill was proposed by three MPs of the Party of Action and Solidarity. The explanatory note to the bill says the taxes are necessary for covering the costs associated with the ensuring of the necessary logistics in courts of law. Furthermore, the new taxes are designed to discourage abusive postponements of hearings and non-presentation of participants at the trial, according to Igor Chiriac.
Judge Livia Mitrofan stated for the Service that the law on the state tax was adopted in 1992 and had to be amended as it was outdated. “For example, a divorce in court now costs 40 lei, but at the Public Services Agency this tax is 200 lei,” said the judge. According to her, many experts in the field learned about the existence of this bill only after it was given a first reading. By the new law, the judges are deprived of the possibility of exempting people from paying state taxes. “We have cases lost at the European Court of Human Rights, when a person wasn’t exempted from paying state taxes and had this way the right to go to court violated. We risk having new convictions at the ECHR,” said Livia Mitrofan.
The Lawyers’ Union asked to institute a moratorium on the adoption of this bill. The Union’s chairman Dorin Popescu told RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service that the bill seriously violates the access to justice. The note to the bill does not explain why the state tax for procedural rights is imposed.
The lawyer believes the tax for the postponement of hearings will be burden of clients. “This is a law against citizens. I realize that the budget needs money, but we cannot destroy the population and speculate on procedural rights,” noted Dorin Popescu. He anticipated that the new state taxes will create chaos in courts.
