The government’s initiative to make the institutions that are under parliamentary control more accountable is not approved of by the former president of the Constitutional Court Alexandru Tănase. According to him, the Ministry of Justice’s proposal allows for political interference in the activity of regulatory institutions. Something like this can be penalized by the international community, particularly in the case of the National Agency for Energy Regulation. For their part, representatives of the government said the law makes the heads of the institutions that are under parliamentary control to work in the interests of citizens, IPN reports.
Under the law to make a number of institutions more responsible, the expert parliamentary commissions assess the work of these entities and propose that Parliament should dismiss their managers if defective management is determined. The ex-CC president said the initiative goes against the principle of autonomy and independence of regulatory institutions.
“The given institutions do not form part of the state power. They are absolutely independent from the three powers – legislative, executive and judicial. If it goes to corruption, not Parliament is the one that should dismiss the heads of these institutions. There are the Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Anticorruption Center that should deal with this. We do not witness an attempt to assess these institutions. Why should we be hypocritical? A mechanism to change the composition of this system is implemented. Everyone realizes what’s going on. […] There are a multitude of international institutions that oblige us to offer independence to these regulators,” Alexandru Tănase stated in the talk show “In Depth” on ProTV Chisinau channel.
For her part, the head of the Parliament’s legal commission for appointments and immunities Olesea Stamate said that by annually assessing the activity of managers of regulatory institutions, they will make sure that these managers do not deviate from the legislation and work in the interests of citizens.
“In time, we have tried to transpose the best European practices, applying models from advanced democracies, believing that this way we can transpose democracy too. But this didn’t happen. The increased independence enabled to conserve corruption and impunity at these institutions. We now introduce the element of accountability. The current legislation enables these institutions to enjoy enough independence, but the responsibility is absent. These institutions spend the taxpayers’ money during years without delivering results and the heads of these institutions cannot be punished disciplinarily or by being discharged,” stated Olesea Stamate.
Under the law that was recently adopted by the parliamentary majority, the MPs analyze the activity of the Competition Council, the National Agency for Energy Regulation, the Audiovisual Council, the National Dispute Resolution Agency and the National Commission for Financial Markets. If the assessment result is unsatisfactory, the managers of these institutions will be dismissed directly by Parliament.
