Guja v. Moldova case reveals how political elite and Prosecutor General’s Office interact, says lawyer

The European Court of Human Rights considered the case of Guja v. Moldova as extremely important because it reveals the way in which the political elite and the General Prosecutor’s Office of Moldova interact, said lawyer Vladislav Gribincea, who defended the plaintiff in the ECHR. Moldova was obliged to pay damages of 18,400 euros to the head of the PR Division of the General Prosecutor’s Office, Iacob Guja, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the lawyer, Iacob Guja was dismissed in 2003 because he gave the national newspaper Jurnal de Chisinau two letters received by the Prosecutor General’s Office. One of the letters was signed by the then Deputy Speaker Vadim Misin. In the letter, Misin expresses his disagreement at the criminal proceedings initiated against certain policemen on charges of abuse of power. He asked the Prosecutor General to get involved in this case. The second letter was written by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexandru Ursachi. He informed the Prosecutor General that one of the prosecuted policemen had been sentenced to imprisonment for misuse of power and use of violence and constraints into making dispositions and was then reinstated in the post at the Interior Ministry. The legal case against the policemen was closed in several months, the lawyer said. During the internal investigation at the Prosecutor General’s Office, Iacob Guja admitted that he gave the letters with the aim of fighting corruption in the judicial system because Misin’s letter could be interpreted only as an instruction given to the Prosecutor General, fact that was later ascertained by the ECHR. “In this case, we presented at the ECHR another three examples of such letters. We were told that dozens of such letters came to the Prosecutor General’s Office every day during 2002-2004 and the prosecutors were writing answers and not investigating the cases,” Vladislav Gribincea said. “The European Court stated clearly in its decision that the Prosecutor General’s Office and the judicial system should be not autonomous from the legislative or executive, but independent. It seems yet that the Office is not independent,” the cited source said. This case was examined by the Grand Chamber of the ECHR. To date, only the case of Ilascu v. Moldova out of the cases against Moldova was examined according to the same procedures, Gribincea said. According to the lawyer, the legal importance of this case is that the public officials have the right to report the departures of their employees without being punished. In Moldova, such a right is not stipulated by law, but the European Convention imposes it and Moldova will be probably forced to amend its legislation and introduce such stipulations. Vladislav Gribincea says that the Prosecutor General’s Office should carry out its own investigation after the ECHR’s decision was pronounced and open a legal case to determine in what circumstances the letter was written, what were the consequences and why the Prosecutor General complied. The lawyer says that he does not know about such investigations carried out by the Office in cases concerning Moldovan dignitaries. The lawyer said that Iacob Guja intends to demand that he is reinstated in his previous position at the Prosecutor General’s Office. Under the ECHR’s decision, this should be the only equitable decision made by the national judges, Vladislav Gribincea said, quoted by Info-Prim Neo.