The amendments to the law on noncommercial organizations formulated by the MPs of the Party of Socialists are unacceptable for a democratic society and come to impose limitations that can exist only in states with dictatorship. Moreover, they are designed to shut up civil society by depriving this of the right to pronounce on public policies and to monitor the elections and election campaigns, said representatives of NGOs. They noted the bill was already given a first reading and was approved by the Parliament’s commission for appointments and immunities for the final reading. According to them, Socialists’ proposals came with delay and cannot be accepted, according to the procedure.
Contacted by IPN for a comment, Veaceslav Berbeca, expert in political sciences of the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives “Viitorul”, referring to the proposal to ban political lobbying, said any action that is critical of the government coalition can be interpreted as lobbying. This is an attempt to shut up the NGOs so that they do not criticize the public policies and actions that the government took or intends to take.
The expert noted the proposal to ban the monitoring of elections is simply diabolical. It is an attempt to drastically limit or even ban the participation by NGOs in election morning. But the role of NGOs is to reveal particular violations of the legislation as Moldova still witnesses deviations from the democratic path and the state institutions evidently promote the interests of the government and do not make the efforts needed to stop the abuses committed by ruling parties.
Pavel Postica, programs director at the Promo-LEX Association, has told IPN that the proposed amendments are absurd, unfounded and it is not clear where they derived from and why. As a result of the monitoring carried out by Promo-LEX, despite the criticism level by most of the election runners, the necessity of civil society overseeing the elections has never been questioned. The observers are those who obtain the legal right to monitor the elections, in accordance with the Election Code. They are the persons who, based on the rights guaranteed by law, make effort to explain how the elections are organized to the people who do not have access to electoral procedures.
According to Pavel Postica, this way they ensure transparency in the process that in parts is closed to the general public. Directly or indirectly, they ensure the credibility of this process. In a democratic country, such amendments will have no chances of being voted. It is not known how Moldova’s Parliament will vote, but there are MPs, including of the parliamentary majority, who expressed skepticism about these amendments.
Vladislav Gribincea, president of the Legal Resources Center of Moldova, has told IPN that such limitations are introduced only in states with dictatorship. But any criticism of democracy is in favor of democracy and there should be no fear of truth. The fact that the NGOs are vocal is positive as the government can be this way influenced to become better. Limitations like those proposed by the Socialists do not exist even in Russia or Azerbaijan. For example, in Russia the promotion of policies is not banned. If someone promotes policies on their websites, they should only declare this. In Moldova, they propose fully banning the promotion of policies.
Vladislav Gribincea also said that he was surprised at the PSRM’s proposal to exclude the ban on campaigning for NGOs, including foundations. The Socialists always maintained that the variant of the bill that was adopted in the first reading allowed the NGOs to become involved in politics. This is not true as the bill actually bans any form of involvement by NGOs in politics, while the amendments proposed by the Socialists exclude this ban from the bill. There is full disagreement between what they said earlier and what they propose now.
As to the exclusion of the possibility for NGOs to pronounce on electoral programs, Vladislav Gribincea said it is not clear how the environmental NGOs, for example, should behave towards parties with a pronounced ecological policy. The same is true about the media NGOs, when a party promotes the introduction of censorship in relation to the press or the liquidation of the independent media.
The National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum earlier asked Parliament to adopt without delay the law on noncommercial organizations in final reading, namely in the variant approved by the legal commission for appointments and immunities on May 28, so that the law could take effect right away. A call to this effect signed by the organizations that are members of the Platform was transmitted to Parliament.
