The National Integrity Commission is not efficient because there are shortcomings in the legislation. For this reason, the property of judges cannot be examined by this Commission, which is empowered to verify the income statements only, not yet the possessions. Such statements were made by the Commission’s head Anatolie Donciu in a debate stage by the Association of Independent Press, IPN reports.
According to Anatolie Donciu, during the last three years the Commission sent about 300 property verification documents to law enforcement agencies. Though these revealed violations, only two cases were sent to court. “If we want the property to be really checked, we must first adjust the law as there will be no efficiency in our work otherwise,” he stated.
The head of the Journalistic Investigations Center Cornelia Cozonac said the journalists carry out many investigations to establish the accuracy of income statements of judges, but the rule of law institutions do not react to these materials. “If you follow the statements of judges, you will see that most of them declare homes and apartments of 10,000 lei and vehicles of 5,000 lei. The prices are diminished because they have low salaries and the value of these possessions should somehow match the official incomes. If they lie to us this way, how can they do justice?” she asked.
According to the executive director of the Association of Independent Press Petru Macovei, a lot of people complain about the fact that the journalistic investigations featuring judges are not always well substantiated. “But we want to see those investigations that are well-founded and show that personal interests and property are hidden producing an end result,” he stated.
Expert Tatiana Puiu said the public association “Jurists for Human Rights” processes the tax returns of judges. “There are judges who declared that they bought real estate whose value is much larger than their incomes. We expect that the National Integrity Commission will examine all the judges who cause suspicions. Not only the journalists and NGOs should reveal the committed illegalities, but also the competent institutions,” she stated.
The debate was held within the project “Monitoring persons with public posts and candidates in 2015 local elections through the agency of the online platform moldovacurata.md”, which is implemented by the Association of Independent Press.
