The Palace of Justice that will include all the ordinary courts of Chisinau municipality and the Court of Appeal will be constructed by 2016, Justice Minister Oleg Efrim told the journalists. The construction of the Palace of Justice is stipulated in the Justice Strategy and a sum of 7.5 million lei was allocated for next year for designing it. The plot where the building will be erected is to be identified, Info-Prim Neo reports. The information was made public on October 18, within the launch of the report on the assessment of the Moldovan courts that was compiled by the USAID Rule of Law Institutional Strengthening Program (ROLISP), the Supreme Council of Magistrates, the Ministry of Justice, and the Embassy of the United States. The report shows that the legal system of Moldova faces a series of infrastructure-related problems. The authors stress the necessity of increasing the security degree and automating the courts of law and the workload. “The report represents a useful instrument for the Ministry of Justice as regards the analysis and working out of policies and legislative documents, especially concerning the workload of judges, the number of examined cases, the developments after 2009, the state of affairs of the court infrastructure, where we must take steps first of all,” said the minister. According to Constantin Bragoi, vice director of the Department of Judicial Administration under the Justice Ministry, a large part of the ordinary courts and the courts of appeal of Moldova are situated in buildings that are not suitable for a court to work efficiently. The exterior of 32% of the total number of buildings is in an unsatisfactory state. 28% of the buildings are supplied with electric power in an unacceptable way, while 27% of the buildings have an improper sewerage system. The president of the Supreme Council of Magistrates Nichifor Corochii said the automation and informatization of the judicial system is an indispensable element for the courts to function and manage justice given that the number of cases is on the rise. Currently, 32% of the courts do not scan documents, while in half of the courts the system for recording the hearings is not used. At the same time, in most of the courts the number of judges exceeds the number of courtrooms. The report covers the period between May and June 2012.