The General Assembly of Judges has generated contradictory discussions in society regarding the legality and morality of convening such an event in the current state of the justice system. While some consider the organization of the assembly correct from the legal point of view, others consider it legally groundless, IPN reports.
MP of PAS group, ACUM bloc, Sergiu Litvinenco, argues that what happened on Friday shows how rotten the justice system in the Republic of Moldova is. According to him, there was a quorum issue at the Assembly. Litvinenco says that at the time of voting for the termination of CSM members, there were only 184 judges who did not make up the majority of the total number of 394 judges. “I cannot call this event a General Assembly of Judges. It is not a deliberative session and an Assembly in the legal sense of the term. In the conditions in which there is no quorum, there is a meeting, a sitting, but it is not a General Assembly of Judges”, said the parliamentarian. In his opinion, the purpose of the judges who initiated the Assembly is to block the activity of the judiciary, taking into account that the event was organized immediately after the immunity of the chairman of the Supreme Court of Justice, Ion Druță, had been withdrawn.
Judge Oleg Melniciuc thinks that the General Assembly of Judges was convened in compliance with the Law and it was based on certain rulings of judges. The magistrate says that something like this has never happened before. In Oleg Melniciuc' s opinion, there would have been no problems related to this Assembly, if the agenda did not include the item referring to the lifting of CSM mandates. "If the state of the system had been on the agenda, I am completely certain that the CSM would have not opposed the Assembly, and 360 judges would have attended it. The situation would have been discussed, the former chairman of CSM, Victor Micu, who has had a long activity, and the current interim chairman, Dorel Musteață would have been asked to give a report. And, if in the process of this meeting someone requested to change the agenda and include the vote of no confidence to the Council, demanding resignation, this would have been a fair procedure, then it would have been possible for the judges to vote for the resignation”, said the magistrate on" Time of expertise " show, on Jurnal TV.
Former deputy director of the National Anti-Corruption Centre Cristina Țărnă believes that it is a positive thing that the judges wanted to convene an Assembly. "I would treat with much more respect the fact that such a large percentage of the judges came to this Assembly, even if it did not make a quorum. At least, for the whole society, it is clear that they have set out to dismiss the CSM members who have been named also by them”, stated Cristina Țărnă.
Political commentator Pavel Midrigan believes that the state of affairs in the judicial system should be discussed very clearly. In his opinion, some mediators should be selected to calm down those from the system because trust in the judicial system must be restored. Pavel Midrigan argues that a possibility to restore things could be provided by the National Integrity Authority, which should check each magistrate separately, and some of them should be removed from the system. In addition, the Fiscal Inspectorate could check the judges during every year.
On Friday, September 27, the General Assembly of Judges took place, where it was decided to revoke the mandates of seven members of the Superior Council of Magistracy.
