Ștefan Gligor, the president of the Party of Change, believes that the government is now on a wrong path in reforming the judiciary and that it has put itself into the hands of people within the system who offer “easy but wrong” solutions.

“In thirty years, this system has never been able to clean itself (...) And this system can not be cleaned up through statements, through small steps, through collaborations with people within the system that made the rise and spread of Plahotniuc’s criminal organization possible. The architecture of the current justice system, of the judiciary and of the prosecution, cannot be reformed with decorative measures”, declared Ștefan Gligor during a debate held by IPN.

The politician is of the opinion that PAS has taken the wrong path in the last half a year, and this is because it has chosen the “easy way”. “Some smart guys came and and threw some plans on the table, plans and arrests. And this is the wrong way, because it’s the easy way. Because those plans come from the people who helped Plahotniuc become who he was”.

The idea of vetting and pre-vetting promoted by PAS as a solution for cleaning the system seems deficient to Ștefan Gligor: “That pre-vetting and vetting is also done by people. Plus, it takes a lot of time to implement”.

According to Gligor, the government is trying to cooperate with some old people in the system to buy time and put the vetting procedures in place. But until that happens, PAS risks running out of time and losing political support.

Still, the president of the Party of Change does not believe that the current government can be accused of any ill-will in clearing the justice system, perhaps only of “incompetence and poor organization”. But during the Socialist government, according to Gligor, things were different: “What happened during the rule of President Dodon must be investigated by an honest, independent and professional prosecution group (...) The year he has been in charge, and the half a year of PAS rule are two examples of terrible administrations. But their motivations are totally different. In the case of the Socialists and President Dodon, there was a conscious tolerance of corrupt systems and co-participation in them. And in the case of PAS, it is simply a matter of incapacity, lack of human resources, lack of strategy and vision”.

The debate titled “Combating corruption in Moldova: goals, processes and effects” was the 224th installment of the Developing Political Culture Series run by IPN with the support of Hanns Seidel Foundation.