The Moldovan Bar Association’s Board has decided to call off its protests beginning on January 25 after the government agreed to involve the lawyers’ community more in improving the legislation governing the practice of law.
Bar president Dorin Popescu told a press conference that the organization’s board gave the government until February 15 to create a formal working group to further amend the legislation and improve safeguards for lawyers. Protesting could resume if the demands are left unfulfilled.
“I believe that by today’s decision, the lawyers’ community has showed greater wisdom than the authorities when they decided to amend the second paragraph of Article 52 of the Practice of Law Act. The Bar Association has no intention of fighting governments of any color, but lawyers must retain the right to safely practice their profession”, stated Dorin Popescu.
He added that both Olesea Stamate, chair of Parliament’s legal commission, and justice minister Sergiu Litvinenco expressed their openness to cooperate with the Bar Association to develop additional safeguards for lawyers, specifically by amending the Code of Criminal Procedure.
“Eventually, thanks to our protests, the drafters of the (recently adopted) amendment have given up removing those guarantees and recognized publicly that they will be kept”, said Popescu.
Iurie Mărgineanu, member of the Bar’s board, said he was not necessarily against the controversial amendment. “But the way the Law was tampered with without hearing out the lawyers, makes me doubt the success of the government’s endeavor to build a state based on the rule of law”.
Last Friday, Parliament voted to strike out Art. 2(5) of the Practice of Law Act, which said that “lawyers may not be apprehended, brought by force, arrested or searched without the prior consent of the Council of the Bar Association, except when caught in the act of committing a criminal offense”.
