After the Parliament voted on June 8, 2019, the Statement on Recognizing the Captive Nature of the State, the society witnessed some alleged legal changes, says Vitalie Șalari, mayor of Băcioi commune. The mayor says that on July 25, the Superior Council of Magistracy decided to remove from the administrative functions several "tools of the Plahotniuc mafia regime", but instead of starting the "lustration process of the judges, their victimization process started". Vitalie Șalari addressed the governors, noting that "the mafia representatives had infiltrated long ago in their ranks to deliver the coup de grace to them at the right moment." Vitalie Șalari said that he dazedly heard that "the fresh judge of the Chisinau Court Victoria Sanduţa is among the 31 judges who have signed an appeal to the Superior Council of Magistracy to ensure their independence through legal, transparent and objective decisions".
Even he is one of the founders of the Democratic Party of Moldova, ex-Premier Ion Sturza considers the PDM should disappear. According to him, at the extraordinary congress of the PDM set for September 7, the party should be dissolved. Ion Sturza said that besides two-three leaders, most of the members of the PDM are profoundly demoralized and do not want to be associated with the “criminal regime”. Only several members of the PDM left the country, while the others remained and are liable to prosecution. “The usurpation of the state power took place. There were signed decrees and organized battalions for defending the state institutions even if we had a Parliament, a coalition and a legal Government. These are not jokes,” noted the former politician.
Moldova repeats the exercise of re-opening the European financial assistance just 4 years after its first banning, caused by the banking system fraud, revealed after the 2014 parliamentary elections. In a feature for IPN Agency, expert in political sciences Dionis Cenușa says this time, to restore the access to European funding took place at a rapid pace, without setting any (pre-)conditions. On the contrary, the EU has made a political assessment of the actions taken by the new government in the first almost two months of the mandate. In other words, the unblocking of assistance in 2019 relies more on the credibility and intention of the government and the parliamentary majority than on exploring definitive and concrete results. The conditionality should belong to the mechanism for granting any kind of European financial assistance, regardless the degree of harmony in the EU-Moldova dialogue. Inevitably, conditionality will come into play when the debate on macro-financial assistance will start.
New parliamentary elections will take place in three constituencies on October 20, simultaneously with the local general elections. The seats of MP became vacant after Parliament accepted the resignations tendered by three MPs elected in the given constituencies on February 24, 2019. These are Andrei Năstase, Viorel Melnic and Maia Sandu.
Lilian Popescu, ex-chairman of Ialoveni district and former member of the Democratic Party, claims he was “a scapegoat in a political show” and that for four years his name had been “sullied” by the Democratic Party of Moldova. Lilian Popescu says that, since October 2015, he has gone through “difficult, horrible days”, being dragged through different courts. He sued the Republic of Moldova for damages for the abuses committed by the criminal prosecution authorities. In the first case, the State must pay him MDL 100,000. The second case for damages is at the Court of Appeals. The required amount is MDL 50,000.
Prime Minister Maia Sandu has requested the resignation of the board of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), because “it does not provide the judicial system of Moldova with a sufficient number of well-trained and incorruptible specialists.” According to the Prime Minister, NIJ has failed to achieve its goals given the “catastrophic situation in the justice system.” Maia Sandu mentioned that, over time, the NIJ has hired persons with integrity problems. There is evidence of bribery practices within the institution, both on admission and upon graduation. “How can we have a fair justice when the Institute itself teaches future prosecutors and judges that corruption is something normal,” Maia Sandu asked rhetorically?
Veaceslav Șevciuc, the representative of about 20 customers affected by the heist at Moldova-Agroindbank, claims that they believe the criminal offense was organized inside the bank. As they say it also demonstrates that alarm and video surveillance systems have been disconnected. “In our complaints, the bank has assured us that we can keep our money safe. Shortly after we received the bank's assurances, on July 6 of this year, at 5 pm, the bank informed us by SMS that our safety boxes had been broken and our money had been stolen”, said the representative of affected customers. These are asking the Ministry of Internal Affairs to initiate criminal prosecution for the MAIB. In a press release, the bank said the statements "are ill-founded, no arguments and evidence demonstrating the above-stated facts are presented.
Aneta Zasavitski, president of the National Association of Restaurants and Recreational Places, said the replacement of the VAT rate of 20% with the current rate of 10% in the hospitality industry by the Filip Government last year contributed to greater transparency in the sector, to an increase in the number of official employments and of legally issued sales slips. If the VAT rate of 20% is restored, all the benefits gained so far will disappear. Economic expert Veaceslav Valcov said the fiscal changes made by the Filip Government didn’t solve all the problems faced by the business entities, but laid the basis of a positive tendency in leaving the underground economy . Despite the offered tax concessions, the budget wasn’t affected because the hospitality industry businesses generated the same amount of money.
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