Judges will themselves pay damages for cases lost at ECHR

Judges will pay the damages from their own pocket because as a result of their judgments Moldova loses more and more cases at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev told reporters. The Premier said that every case lost at the ECHR will be analysed, while the persons to blame will be held accountable. As regards the most costly case lost at the Strasbourg Court - Oferta Plus versus Moldova – in which the Government was obliged to pay 2.5 million USD for damages, the largest ever paid, Vasile Tarlev said that the Prosecutor General’s Office is dealing with this case and the authorities will insist that the investigation is completed. The Premier says that the judges that will be found guilty will be obliged to reimburse the money paid by the Government under ECHR decisions. Deputy Minister of Justice Nicolae Esanu said recently that the judges must not be held accountable for the mistakes committed when making decisions as a result of which Moldova lost cases at the ECHR. Lawyer Vladislav Gribincea, who represented the plaintiff Oferta Plus Ltd at the European Court, expressed his concern about Deputy Justice Minister’s statements, saying that the guarantees provided to judges must be guarantees for the mistakes committed from imprudence and not for the intentional abuses. He stressed that the ECHR’s judgment in the case of Oferta Plus clearly stipulates that “the quashing of the court decisions by the Supreme Court of Justice was abusive”. In the case of Oferta Plus, a company that supplied electric power to Moldova during 1997-1998, including to budget-funded institutions that did not fully paid for the consumed electricity, the Government of Moldova was obliged to pay damages totalling 2.53 million euros, sum that is larger than all the damages paid by Moldova to date under ECHR decisions.