Moldova adopts EU-conforming laws, but implements them poorly, ADEPT

Moldova adopts laws that conform to European norms, but their implementation is poor. The statement was made during a press conference by Igor Botan, executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT. He blamed for it the lack of resources and the political factors, Info-Prim Neo reports. Igor Botan sees the biggest problem in the field of justice. Reforms are still at the stage of development and legislative and normative acts are just being adopted. The impact of the Reform Strategy is minimal and most of the deadlines for implementing measures stipulated by plans of actions aren’t respected. The justice reform lacks the necessary human, financial and technical resources. Budgetary public investments are insignificant and the justice remains under the influence of political and administrative factors, while the perceived level of corruption within the system is still high. According to Igor Botan, adopting the Law on ensuring equality was one of the main achievements in the field of human rights, but the Law was one the EU requirements for advancing Moldova to the second stage of the Plan of Action for the liberalization of the visa regime. One of the remaining problems is impunity for cases of torture and ill-treatment. Igor Botan said that the Plan of Actions in the field of human rights is behind schedule. There is a problem in the field of fighting corruption. The fulfillment of some commitments to the EU is late, as is the implementation of the National Anticorruption Strategy. Igor Botan also spoke about the National Integrity Commission, which hasn’t started its work yet, although it should have begun in March. The Commission lacks a head because there is no political will for it and because of the excessive politicization of administrative and legal bodies. As regards the Transnistrian conflict, Igor Botan noted that Moldova enjoyed the EU’s support. The best development is that the level of tension is dropping, although the conflict remains a frozen one. Some results have indeed been achieved: freight railway traffic through the Transnistrian region was resumed, imports from the right side to the left side tripled in the first half of the year and the Transnistrian special customs tax for Moldovan goods was canceled.