The arrest of the five judges by the National Anticorruption Center on corruption charges could be related to the upcoming parliamentary elections. It is yet not clear why these arrests were made now. The issue was developed in the talk show “Expertise hour” on Jurnal TV channel, IPN reports.
Lawyer Eduard Rudenko said the judges could have been arrested in connection with the upcoming legislative elections. “To my mind, this could also be a simple sacrifice before the elections. We can discuss this aspect too. It could also be a simple coincidence. Someone had to be brought to justice,” he stated. According to the lawyer, there are many corrupt judges in the Moldovan legal system. “If we install video cameras in any office of lawyers of the Appeals Court, during a week we will definitely have by two-three criminal cases.”
Judge Gheorghe Bălan said the failure of the justice sector reform strategy is a sad picture as both the citizens of the Republic of Moldova and the foreign partners put great hope in this. Details about the way in which prosecutors’ applications were examined and how they were accepted, partially or fully, would become known in the nearest future. “If it’s true that they took part in the sentencing of a number of culprits, I want to believe that these persons would reveal details about the political orders concerning the conviction of persons,” stated the judge, referring to the conviction of ex-Premier Vlad Filat and businessman Veaceslav Platon.
Former judge at the ECHR Stanislav Pavlovski said all the procedures were respected in the arrest of these judges, but wondered why now and why these judges were arrested. “Why did they take this step? There are several possible answers and I think one of these is that some of these judges consider that they can do everything they want if they work together with the government. They probably crossed a particular limit in their activity,” stated Stanislav Pavlovski.
Ten persons, among whom five judges, a prosecutor, a lawyer, a judicial assistant, a doctor and a private individual, were detained on October 23. The judges are suspected of asking for and receiving large sums of money for passing favorable judgments in a number of examined criminal cases. The lawyer and the prosecutor acted as intermediaries in the transfer of the money. The decisions were to be pronounced in favor of the doctor and the private individual.
On October 24, three judges of the five detained on corruption charges on October 23 will be held at the remand prison of the National Anticorruption Center. A judge will stay in custody for 30 days, while another two judges for 20 days. Two judges were placed under house arrest for 30 days. Prosecutors’ claims concerning the other four persons detained in this case – a doctor, a lawyer, a judicial assistant and an accused private individual – will be submitted to court on October 25.
