In an ideal world, a “guilty President” who purportedly broke the Constitution, as in the case of Maia Sandu, should be punished by impeachment. Regrettably, the chances for the incumbent President to be punished are slim. Parliament will probably have to ask the Constitutional Court if there are also other methods for punishing the “guilty President”. The Court at a certain moment will be unable to avoid the question as to how serious the deviation committed by Maia Sandu, who also enjoys immunity, is. The impeachment procedure could be initiated, but it would not be completed, political analyst Cornel Ciurea stated in IPN’s public debate “Transitional government, snap elections or impeachment: for and against, benefits and risks”.
According to Cornel Ciurea, everyone understands that the impeachment procedure is rather thorny. Signatures should be collected first, but the period during which the signatures of one third of MPs must be collected it is not known. The procedure for suspending the President is performed by Parliament and a referendum is held in 30 days. There, the votes in favor of the dismissal of the President must be higher in number than the votes won by Maia Sandu at elections. This seems difficult, almost impossible. That’s why the Constitutional Court will have to pronounce and say how the President who violates the Constitution should be punished.
The political analyst considers the dissolution of Parliament and holing of snap elections would worsen the situation in the county. The decision concerning the dissolution of Parliament that can be taken by the Constitutional Court should refer not to a particular term, but to the state institutions’ unwillingness to solve the crisis. If Parliament shows that it is ready to vote in a government, but it will be permanently blocked by Maia Sandu, there won’t be conditions for dissolving Parliament. There won’t be chances for holding snap elections and the crisis will have to be solved either by concessions made by the President to the demands to accept the candidate of the parliamentary majority or by impeachment.
Cornel Ciurea said that given the political, governmental instability caused by Maia Sandu, the involvement of the masses in the solving of problems between political players seem to be destructive. “The suggestion to mount protests was made by Renato Usatyi who wants to this way enter Parliament. The masses are manipulated for the political players to profit. The same was said by Maia Sandu, who allegedly wants consultations with the so-called civil society,” he said, noting this legal nihilism of Maia Sandu is a problem.
The public debate “Transitional government, snap elections or impeachment: for and against, benefits and risks” is the 174th installment of the project “Developing Political Culture though Public Debates” that is implemented by IPN with the assistance of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
