The restructuring of the legal system will be one of the main directions of the future justice sector reform strategy for the next five years that wil be adopted by Parliament. The law to optimize the map of national courts of law, which started to be implemented a year ago, will be modified, Minister of Justice Alexandru Tanase stated in a press briefing on January 30, IPN reports.
According to the minister, the optimization of the juridical map, no matter how well it was thought up, when it started to be implemented generated situations that couldn’t have been anticipated. The Court of Chisinau, which examines 45% of the total number of cases, is the most painful issue. At this Court, there will be implemented the mechanism of trying the case depending on the specialty of judges, by categories, according to the nature of the case. “The optimization of the judicial map wasn’t limited to financial matters only. Justice is a public service that is provided by the Government to society. The goal was to enhance the act of doing justice,” stated Alexandru Tanase.
The future justice sector reform strategy will include a staff reform. “This does not mean that the Ministry of Justice will promote staff cleaning reforms. It will promote the permanent assessment of judges depending on a number of criteria. There will be evaluated not only the judicial performance, but also the knowledge of judges. A bill to standardize access to the post of judge will be promoted,” said the minister, adding that the Ministry of Justice counts on the National Integrity Authority in this process.
The new strategy will also lay emphasis on the improvement of the random case distribution system so that this could not be manipulated and on the adoption of legal provisions that would ensure the recording of hearings. The judicial system will also be strengthened by improving the mechanism for calculating the budgets for justice, by amendments that will limit membership in the Supreme Court of Magistracy to one term and by limiting the right of the prosecutor general, minister of justice and president of the Supreme Court of Justice to vote decisions to promote, penalize and dismiss judges in the Supreme Court of Magistracy.
The new strategy will define mechanisms for ensuring the transparency of judgments passed by courts of law. The Ministry will propose a series of changes concerning the classing of cases as secret. Stress will be placed on the relationship with civil society. According to Alexandru Tanase, civil society is a partner, not an opponent and the criticism that comes from civil society is useful to the government.
