The Constitutional Court (CC) of Moldova declared unconstitutional Article 345 (par. 2) of the Contravention Code concerning the fining of legal entities and persons holding responsible posts 300 conventional units (a c.u. is equal to 20 lei) for violating the metrology rules. According to the Court, these provisions didn’t allow individualizing the fine, IPN reports.

The CC received two applications on the issue, submitted by the Centru Court in March and in April 2016. The author of the unconstitutionality exceptions claimed that the way in which the penalty stipulated in Article 345 (par. 2) of the Contravention Code is regulated runs counter to the Constitution because it does not enable the court of law to individualize the penalty in accordance with the specific circumstances of the case. Thus, for particular violations defined in this Article, a fixed fine of 300 contravention units was set for legal entities and persons holding responsible posts.

The applications to the Court were initiated by the lawyer of a party involved in a trial, which was penalized by the Consumer Protection Agency for not indicating the cost per gram of product in the price. The lawyer maintains that the party met all the other conditions, while the indication of the price per gram is not plainly stipulated in the law. The lawyer argued that the Constitution encourages punishment in accordance with the scale of the violation, which takes into account concrete details of the way in which the person violated or obeyed the law. The author said that this principle was not respected in the case of this law as it stipulated a fixed fine without taking into consideration other circumstances.

The CC will notify Parliament of its judgment so that it amends the Contravention Code.