Recommendations for Government on last 100 meters

The Resource Center for Human Rights (CReDO) made recommendations for two issues that were included in the agenda of the May 23 meeting of the Government – the bill with amendments to the Law on the Center for Combating Corruption and Economic Crime (CCCEC), and the draft Law on Equal Opportunities, Info-Prim Neo reports. CReDO director Sergiu Ostaf told a news conference that the two draft laws are important for Moldova and represent commitments made by the country in the dialogue with the European Union. According to Sergiu Ostaf, the bill with amendments to the Law on the CCCEC needs several important adjustments. In order to ensure the institution’s depoliticization, CReDO recommends that the Center’s director should be named by a majority of votes of MP, at the suggestion of a special commission that would include representatives of the Parliament’s legal commission and civil society. The CReDO experts suggest obliging the employees and administration of the CCCEC to report cases of interference in their work, examining the given cases and holding the persons to blame accountable. They also consider that the CCCEC should present an annual progress report to the Government and Parliament. Sergiu Ostaf welcomed the executive’s intention to approve the law that promotes a nondiscriminatory approach to certain social groups, but believes that the law’s name should be modified. “Not equal opportunities, but at least ensuring of equality, as in the names of all the laws in the European area – ensuring of equality and equal treatment. Or the previous name may be restored,” he stated. CReDO also recommended the Government to re-include in the law the phrases ‘state of health’, ‘sexual orientation’, ‘property’ and ‘social origin’, and to specify that discrimination on these grounds is penalized.