The situation in the justice sector is exceptional, said President Maia Sandu, referring to the General Assembly of Judges’ decision to put off the election of the new composition of the Superior Council of Magistracy. The official noted the system puts up resistance to the reform started by the PAS government, but the extraordinary assessment will not be stopped and more assessors will be involved in the vetting process so that the cleaning of the system lasts less time, IPN reports.
President Sandu said the critical situation in the justice sector made her convoke the Supreme Security Council, but despite the resistance of judges to the reform, the government will not give up the extraordinary assessment of judges for clearing the system of corrupt elements.
“We have an exceptional situation in justice after the General Assembly of Judges decided to postpone and block the constitution of the Superior Council of Magistracy. The constitution of the SCM enables us to move to the next stage of the reform and this SCM in general is needed for the justice system to work. I convoked the Supreme Security Council for Monday and we will discuss extraordinary measures given the experienced situation. I requested Parliament to set up an Anticorruption Court. This will be a specialized court that will deal with grand corruption and corruption in the justice sector. As long as we have corruption in justice, our efforts to fight corruption are useless,” Maia Sandu stated in a special edition on the public TV channel.
The official noted the reformation of the justice sector through the extraordinary assessment of judges and prosecutors is supported by the development partners of the Republic of Moldova. To hasten the process, more evaluators will be involved in the vetting.
“Probably, there are also corrupt prosecutors who try to block the processes, but the judges yet put up the greatest resistance. This is a reaction to the first external assessment stage – the assessment of the potential members of the new Superior Council of Magistracy. As not many managed to pass this integrity exam, we see greater resistance to this reform. Yes, it takes time, but things develop as the international organizations and the European Union, which supervise this process, require. We would like things to go faster. We are considering involving more foreign assessors so that more people are assessed during a shorter period of time,” said President Sandu.
The March 17 meeting of the General Assembly of Judges, which involved 330 of the 425 judges of the system, will continue on April 28. The Assembly didn’t approve the new composition of the Superior Council of Magistracy and the government accused the judges of deliberately blocking the justice sector reform.
