Bill eliminating economic courts receives Legal Commission's approval

The Parliament's Legal Commission gave its formal approval to a bill that liquidates economic courts from the Moldovan judicial system. The bill was approved almost unanimously at the Commission's meeting on Wednesday, with only Communist Sergei Sirbu abstaining, Info-Prim Neo reports. The initiative to eliminate economic courts, which was launched by the Liberal-Democratic Party in 2010, has been largely disputed, including by members of the ruling European Integration Alliance. Justice Minister Oleg Efrim and Lib-Dem MP Tudor Deliu said the protraction of debates on this bill denoted the existence of some hidden interests; which made Democrat MP Adrian Candu ask them to avoid overplaying. Liberal MP Mihai Ghimpu stated that the Alliance parties should review the bill in its essence and stop being guided by emotions. In his argumentation for the proposal, Minister Efrim said most complaints that reach the European Court of Human Rights represent the failure of the economic courts, which are a remnant of the Soviet judicial system and must disappear. After the liquidation, the 10 judges of the Economic Appellate Court will be transferred to the Chisinau Court of Appeals and the other 12 judges from lower economic courts will be transferred to district courts. Their salaries will not change and their retraining will be financed by EBRD and the National Justice Institute. According to Efrim, the economic courts will be liquidated within 6 months from the Parliament's adoption of the bill. The bill liquidating economic courts was first debated in Parliament in August 2010, when it didn't gather enough votes to pass. The Democratic faction stated then that the bill was an attempt to “subordinate the judicial power to some parties”. All the Lib-Dems' repeated attempts to secure adoption also failed.