Influence peddling is the offense that could be found most often in the sentences passed by courts of law in 2020. Respectively, most of the convictions were imposed on those who committed influence peddling and active corruption, followed by those who resorted to passive corruption, shows a study carried out by the Analytical Section of the National Anticorruption Center (NAC), IPN reports.
Among the persons convicted of corruption and related offenses are employees holding responsible posts in the public sector, including executive posts. The courts pronounced mainly on cases of corruption in which the value of the bribe was small.
Acts of large-scale corruption weren’t found in the analyzed sentences and this, according to the NAC, reveals the risk of non-punishment of those to blame for grand corruption. 57% of the cases of passive corruption solved in courts were classed as passive corruption in the amount that does not exceed 100 conventional units (a c.u. is equal to 50 lei).
In the course of 2020, the number of cases of corruption and related offenses examined in national courts declined. This can be due to the reduction of the effective program of examining cases with the presence of defendants.
In cases of influence peddling and abuse of power or abuse of authority, the courts prefer to impose fines even if the criminal law stipulates also jail terms.
The analysis authors identified 16 cases of writing of false data in public documents that were dealt with by courts in 2020. These acts affected mainly public procurement, the state budget and public health. In most of the cases, the culprits were fined and jailed, being also banned from holding particular posts or performing particular activities for a period of two to three years.
The study was conducted based on information from sentences published on the National Portal of Courts of Law of the Republic of Moldova and on information obtained with the assistance of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, when some of the sentences could not be found on the portal.
