The Congress of Local Authorities of Moldova (CALM) considers the bill that allows a person who wasn’t elected by the citizens to become the manager of the local public administration is a dangerous precedent and is contrary to the Constitution. The reaction comes after the Government last week approved the bill that allows choosing district heads not only from among councilors, IPN reports.
The CALM is against this initiative and informed the responsible parliamentary commission that the authors of this proposal do not take into account particular fundamental principles, including the eligibility of the most important authorities of the LPAs and the representativeness of the local community, in this case of the district.
According to CALM, the only solution is for the local elected officials to be chosen by universal, direct, secret and freely expressed ballot by the population or local communities. “Being elected from among councilors, the district head has this representativeness (status of local elected official) as, in accordance with Article 52 of the Law on the Local Public Administration, the district head has the status of local elected official and represents the district, which is the given local community,” the Congress said in a press release.
The CALM believes that a person who didn’t pass the integrity “test” of the local community by being elected as a councilor cannot head the most important local executive body. The bill, in the proposed variant, cannot be supported as it does not meet the conceptual, constitutional and legal principles concerning the organization and functioning of the LPAs of the Republic of Moldova, distorting and endangering the place and importance of the status of local elected official.
