The judgment by which the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held that ex-Premier Vlad Filat didn’t enjoy a fair trial should be taken as an example for underlining in national case law that any person has the right to a public trial so that the persons could prove their innocence and could benefit from all the guarantees and society is informed about what is happening, said Victor Munteanu, the lawyer for Vlad Filat.
In a news conference hosted by IPN, Victor Munteanu stated that to avoid the ascertaining of a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, with a negative impact on Moldova’s reputation, the state, through the agency of courts of law, can remedy the irregularities committed in the trial. The legislation provides that the persons, before going to the ECHR, can go to the national courts for these to eventually put right the committed wrongdoings.
“Regrettably, the national courts didn’t assume responsibilityfor performing this correct exercise and for remedying this shortcoming domestically. But the decision to convict the Republic of Moldova was reached because this Convention is actually the reason – the state undertook particular commitments, namely to respect the human rights, including by fulfilling the procedural obligations. And this wasn’t done,” noted the lawyer.
According to Victor Munteanu, the ECHR judgment says the national courts of law didn’t provide explanations as to why they decided that this trial should take place behind closed doors. “The Court held that the circumstances or justifications offered by the national courts of all levels haven’t been sufficient to prove why the hearings were held behind closed doors and that this closed trial actually widened the possibility of violating the equity of procedures, the correctness of the whole process that resulted in that sentence,” said the lawyer.
Vlad Filat said the fact that the hearings were not public led to the violation of a number of basic human rights and freedoms and the conviction could have been avoided if the trial had been public as it goes to the witnesses, how the defense was ensured, how the judges behaved and why those judges rejected all the applications.
Arrested on October 15, 2015 and sentenced to nine years in jail for passive corruption and influence peddling by the sentence passed by the Chisinau Court on June 27, 2016, which remained final by the Spume Court of Justice’s judgment of February 2017, Vlad Filat was released from jail before time, in December 2019, based on the national mechanism for reducing the punishment owing to the inhuman and degrading conditions in prison.
Vlad Filat pleaded not guilty. “I was tried by an unfair trial in which I was unable to prove my innocence. I served that sentence that was ordered by captured courts of law, as everyone said and as it was noted by a Parliament decision of 2019,” said Vlad Filat. The former Premier underlined that he was held in inhuman and degrading conditions for 50 months and was later put on probation and ultimately served his sentence.
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