Vladimir Turcan: Present Parliament not to reconsider law banning multiple citizenship holders' access to public jobs

The present parliament will not review the law banning public citizenship holders from occupying jobs of public figures. The statement was made Monday at a news conference by Vladimir Turcan, the chairman of the legal commission of the Parliament, Info-Prim Neo reports. “The present parliament cannot return to the laws related to elections since it's only two and a half months before the elections. The Venice commission recommends that the Parliament cannot modify the electoral law within such a short time before the elections,” Vladimir Turcan said. The Communist MP says that, by the decision in the case Tanase and Chirtoaca vs. Moldova, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) did not suggest the Government to change the law, but only exposed its opinion as to the request made by the two citizens. Vladimir Turcan maintains the Government eyes to due the decision in the Grand Chamber of the ECHR. “We'll draw the ECHR's attention that the would-be claim of breeching the human rights has not been exhausted: no plaintiff has run for a seat in the Parliament and it is not known whether they will get one,” the chairman of the Legal Commission says. According to Turcan, the ECHR would have had no pretensions as to this law, if Moldova would have sent its reserves as to art. 17 of the Convention when it ratified it. The article provides that “no one may use the rights guaranteed by the Convention to seek the abolition or limitation of rights guaranteed in the Convention. This addresses instances where states seek to restrict a human right in the name of another human right, or where individuals rely on a human right to undermine other human rights.” Turcan says Moldova could not have worded that reserve since the Convention was ratified in 1999, while the right to multiple citizenship was introduced in 2003. Turcan says the Chisinau authorities may still present the ECHR member states why Moldova cannot observe this article. The Parliament adopted legal modifications in last April preventing the people holding dual citizenship to accede to public jobs. The law was sued by Chisinau mayor Dorin Chirtoaca and the lawyer Alexandru Tanase, who hold Romanian citizenship, too. On November 18, the ECHR publicized its decision stating that the law was not justified and proportionate. The Moldova Government has three months to sue the decision in the ECHR's Grand Chamber.