Arrests in Moldova are made with violations of legislation

Prosecutors’ applications and the arrest warrants are not always in compliance with the law. They are often not substantiated or sufficiently motivated, says a report by Soros Foundation Moldova, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the report, not all the prosecutors and judges in Moldova know what ‘motivate’ means. It is not normal for the person that is searched, arrested or put under house arrest not to understand from the warrant why the measure was applied, said the author of the report, expert Kurt Albrecht Stange. The Government’s representative at the ECHR Vladimir Grosu agreed that the warrant issuing system must be improved as many ECHR decisions point to shortcomings in this system. Ion Guzun, project coordinator at the Moldova Institute for Human Rights (IDOM), said Moldova is one of the first countries that use arrest as a priority even if the ECHR recommends employing this measure only in exceptional cases. He said that most of the arrests on April 7 were made without reason. Deputy Prosecutor General Igor Serbinov said the prosecutors also submit unsubstantiated applications. “The people file complaints about prosecutors to the Prosecutor’s Office, but this is the competence of the courts. Some of the prosecutors do not sufficiently know the conditions in which the arrest is used, but there are also cases when the prosecutors have a heavy workload and do not devote enough attention to motivating their applications for arrest,” said Igor Serbinov. “We must perform all the tasks so as to improve professionalism and responsibility in the warrant issuing system.” The report was compiled with the assistance of the German Foundation for International Legal Cooperation.