The necessity of reforming the justice sector of the Republic of Moldova has been discussed for many years and many of the governments followed the same scenario – amendment of laws – but this is not enough, lawyer Andrei Briceac, who heads the Civil Justice Institute , stated in an interview with IPN.
“We follow the path of amendment of laws and this didn’t help much. Also, almost all the governments tried to replace the people. There were particular judges and they substituted these with their judges. So, they do reforms that enable to name convenient judges. That’s why the liquidation of institutions or the replacement of persons does not ensure the justice system will work properly,” said Andrei Briceac.
He noted that more should be invested in education and greater independence should be offered to the judiciary.
“We must tend to make the judges more responsible. It is also important to have responsible prosecutors and lawyers but a final decision is taken by the judge. Responsibility for the administration of justice should be ensured and it is not easy to combine independence with responsibility as the independence of a judge can be limited when trying to increase their responsibility,” stated the lawyer.
According to him, if a judge can consciously commit an abuse in his work and he knows that he can be held accountable for that abuse, he will think twice before doing so.
“Evidently, the judge is under political pressure or someone from outside dictates a particular solution and insists on that solution. But the judge should resist as serving as a judge is a responsibility and this post requires a lot of courage for being able to take correct decisions. When a judge says that he will not fulfill political orders and what is requested by political players because he can be held accountable in several years this can be a guarantee that the judge will act correctly,” noted Andrei Briceac.
The lawyer said that investing in education for the people to better know their rights is the first step for society to realize where abuses are committed. The second step is for society to react to abuses and not to tolerate them.
“We should not become a society that tolerates injustice. The judicial power, as the other powers, is affected by vices. If we are not attentive, we will not achieve results. We must solve all the aspects of problems. We must increase socioeconomic comfort and keep the people, the specialists here. We experience serious problems in the courts in Chisinau owing to the shortage of specialists. The judges are overloaded with cases,” stated the lawyer.
He noted that many people leave the system and the young people choose to study abroad and then refuse to come and work for institutions in Moldova because the pays are small.
The interview “Election contenders removed from the race through injustice. How to avoid such cases in next elections?” was conducted by IPN News Agency in the framework of the project “Support for the Justice Reform through multimedia coverage of cases of alleged injustice”. The video variant of the interview is available here.
