Policemen will use torture until they are encouraged, jurist

Moldova loses cases at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) because of the problems deriving from the imperfect legislation and the judicial practice. More than one third of the Moldovan cases concern the non-implementation of court decisions, while the others – substandard judicial acts. “This means that the judges and prosecutors do not appropriately do their jobs,” the head of the Association of Lawyers for Human Rights of Moldova Vlad Gribincea said in a roundtable meeting themed “Authorities Responsible for Moldova’s Convictions at the ECHR”, Info-Prim Neo reports. Torture and maltreatment are among the most serious offenses examined by the ECHR. According to Vlad Gribincea, the cases of use of torture are due not to persons, but mainly to the mentality and system rules. The persons are tortured in order to extract confessions. The ECHR struggles to prevent the use of torture. “Today, the policemen’s professionalism is determined by the number of cases solved, not by quality. When this aspect disappears from the system, torture will no more be a problem,” Gribincea said. “If the judges say they do not accept evidence of torture and the prosecutors penalize any attempt to torture, the police officers will be discouraged from using torture.” Invited to the event, judge of the Bucharest Court of Appeals Dragos Calin said what happened in Romania earlier, now happens in Moldova. “We had the same political system, a repressive legal system that the European Court sanctioned,” said the judge. He added Romania is one of the negative heroes of the ECHR, alongside Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, which have the largest number of convictions. However, after it joined the EU, things have improved.