Supreme Court of Justice’s decision should be a lesson to electoral authorities, Coalition 2009

The Supreme Court of Justice on March 19 ruled in favor of the Independent Press Association (API) and Coalition 2009, canceling the decisions of the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the Chisinau District Election Council whereby the API is warned over violations of the electoral legislation. “We think that justice was done to us and this is a laudable thing for the Moldovan justice,” the Coalition’s secretary Nicolae Panfil said during a news conference held at Info-Prim Neo. “The Court’s decision showed that correct decisions can be made over such sensitive issues. At the same time, we call on all those involved in this process to learn the lesson and not admit such deviations in the future,” Panfil said. “This decision by the Supreme Court of Justice should be a lesson firstly to the CEC and secondly to the electoral authorities of other levels,” the executive director of the API Petru Macovei said. In its contestation, the Communist Party (PCRM) complained about an article published in the supplement “Obiectiv” (“Objective”) published by the API. The article titled “Day of Truth for the PCRM” was an analysis of the way that the PCRM fulfilled its 2005 election promises. The API director considers that it is absurd to accuse the press and the journalists of the fact that they express their opinions. “By an irrevocable decision, the Supreme Court ended this odyssey of the absurd and cancelled all the previous decisions that concerned us. This fact gladdens us and motivates us to continue doing what we do,” Petru Macovei said. According to him, the case of “Obiectiv” is not the only press intimidation case. “Unfortunately, some of the election contenders try to use the CEC and the district election commissions as instruments of pressure on the mass media that, according to one or another election contender, do not observe certain rules that they think should be observed. For their part, the electoral authorities, regretfully, admit contestations that concern directly the mass media, even if they do not have the legal right to examine such contestations. The CEC is to examine other contestations lodged by the PCRM against Coalition 2009, which refer to other articles from “Obiectiv” and to social advertisements made by the Institute for Development and Social Initiative IDIS “Viitorul”. Igor Munteanu, the executive director of IDIS “Viitorul”, said that the court’s decision comes at an opportune moment as there can be filed similar contestations and Coalition 2009, through all its member organizations, must distance itself from these tendentious attacks. “The way that the actions of Coalition 2009 are treated by certain media outlets shows that some of the election players created a joint front against the civic activities of the Coalition. We call on the authorities in charge of the electoral process to take this decision seriously and concentrate on the essence of the process not details, which represents a side scenes play by certain election runners,” Munteanu said. The Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Election - Coalition 2009 is a voluntary union of NGOs that aims to contribute to ensuring free, fair, transparent and democratic elections for the Parliament. It continues the activities promoting free and fair elections initiated by Coalition 2005 and Coalition 2007 and has 70 NGO members.