The term in office of the Constitutional Court judge Petru Railean, who was appointed to post by the Government in 2008, expires in October. On this occasion, a number of civil society organizations called on the Government to immediately initiate a public contest to select a new judge instead of him.
The legislation does not stipulate holding a public contest for selecting and appointing judges of the Constitutional Court. “We request the Government to propose amendments to the legislation so as to make the holding of equitable and transparent public contests to choose and name Constitutional Court judges mandatory. Without an equitable and transparent procedure for appointing judges, it will be hard to increase confidence in the Constitutional Court and to improve the quality of the decisions taken by it, head of the Legal Resource Center Vladislav Gribincea said in a news conference at IPN.
Civil society considers that if the recommended changes are not made to the legislation, the judges will be selected non-transparently, based on political preferences. “When a judge is named at the Constitutional Court based on political principles, preconditions are not created for this judge to act perfectly equitably,” stated the jurist.
Head of the Association for Efficient and Responsible Governance Olesea Stamate said the plan of action for implementing the Association Agreement with the EU includes a provision stipulating that the procedure for choosing the Constitutional Court judges must be more clearly regulated. The deadline for improving the procedure is the end of 2014. Thus, the legislation must be amended without delay, especially in the context of the parliamentary elections.
Lawyer of “Promo-LEX” Association Vadim Vieru said the procedure for selecting judges at the Constitutional Court must envision the public questioning of the applicants and the adoption and publication of a decision to explain the reasons why an applicant was selected and why other applicants were not selected.
Earlier, the NGOs made a similar call to the Government, asking amending the Law on the Constitutional Court, but nothing has been done yet. The Constitutional Court has six judges who are selected by the Government, Parliament and the Supreme Council of Magistrates, by two each.
