Conditions for the dissolution of Parliament clearly did not exist in Moldova on June 7 and 8, and Maia Sandu’s investiture on June 8 met the legal deadline, according to an Opinion published today in abridged form by the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s body of experts on constitutional law.

The Venice Commission considers “unprecedented” the way the Moldova Constitutional Court calculated the three-month time limit for the formation of a government. “According to the accepted calculation of the three months limit foreseen in the Civil Code, which was previously applied by the Constitutional Court, the time frame for forming a new government expired on 9 June, three calendar months after the confirmation of the election results. 9 June being a Sunday, the applicable deadline was possibly 10 June. Therefore (...) Maia Sandu’s investiture on 8 June met the legal deadline.”

Further, the Opinion points out that there are strong reasons to conclude that the Constitutional Court’s decision of temporarily suspending the President and the appointment of the Prime Minister as an interim president was not grounded on the Moldovan Constitution.

“The Venice Commission considers that the Constitutional Court did not respect its own procedures nor the principle of equality of the parties when dealing with the recent political crisis. It also recalls that an essential role of the Constitutional Court is to maintain equal distance from all branches of power and to act as an impartial arbiter in case of collision between them, whilst respecting the solutions reached by democratically legitimate institutions,” concludes the Opinion.

The Opinion was prepared at the request of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, following a series of controversial rulings issued by the Constitutional Court during June 7-9 and which were reversed a week later. The full Opinion of the Venice Commission will be published next week.

Prime Minister Maia Sandu commented today on Facebook that the Opinion is “unprecedented” in that “it’s the first time ever that the Venice Commission has clearly pointed out that a Constitutional Court has violated the Constitution”. She considers that the Constitutional judges must resign without delay to allow “professional and independent” successors to restore the reputation of this institution. “As long as this Government exists, the Venice Commission decisions will be binding and will be respected,” said Sandu.

Yesterday Mihai Poalelungi silently resigned as president of the Constitutional Court.