Chisinau Council uproar reaches Parliament

The conflict situation in the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) was a subject debated in the Parliament on Friday, June 20. Although putting forward a number of proposals, the MPs have taken no decision, Info-Prim Neo reports. The discussions have been started by the non-affiliated MP, the leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party (PLDM), Vlad Filat. He has said the Parliament is responsible for the contradictions in the law. The Law on local public administration establishes that the CMC president is to be elected by the simple majority of councilors, but does not regulate the way in which he/she is to be dismissed. At the same time, the district president is elected through simple majority and dismissed with the votes of 2/3 of councilors. Filat proposes that the Parliament construes the law next week, to allow the CMC to work legally. The chair of the Legal, Appointments and Immunities Committee, the Communist Vladimir Turcan has said the Parliament will interpret the law only when it gets an official notification from the CMC. In his opinion, it is not true to make an analogy between the proceedings of dismissing the CMC president and raion president, because the latter one is a position equal to that of a mayor. The chair of the Public Administration Committee, Vladimir Ciobanu, has said the CMC has already notified the committee, which, together with the Ministry of Local Administration, gave an answer. It says that the procedure of dismissing the CMC president is not analogous to the one of a district president. According to the Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN) MP, Gheorghe Susarenco, the Parliament can construe the law only through another legislative initiative approved of MPs. The same opinion has been uttered by the Communist deputy, Vadim Misin, who invoked the international legal principle, according to which, if the law does not provide for the dismissing procedure, the same modality as the electing procedure is applied. Vadim Misin has remarked “all the problem in the CMC does not depend on laws, either good or bad, but on who and how applies them; everyone interprets them to his interest because he wants but to get a function and use it in his own purposes.” The Democratic leader, Dumitru Diacov, has expressed his puzzlement that the Parliament has not yet responded to “the misery in the CMC”. “It's not some remote village, that is why the Parliament should have rather contribute to calm down the situation in the Chisinau municipality,” Diacov has said. In the opinion of the Social-Democrat leader, Dumitru Braghis, the issue must not be discussed in the Parliament. The law provides that the Local Administration Ministry considers the legality of such decisions, which may be sued . On June 6, the Social-Democrat, Communist, Christian-Democrat, Christian-Humanist councilors dismissed, by 27 votes, the CMC president Mihai Ghimpu and appointed Eduard Musuc instead. Yet the decisions are viewed as illegal by the factions of the Liberal Party, of AMN and PLDM, who maintain Mihai Ghimpu is the CMC president. He has repeatedly suggested the conflict in the Council may be solved only by the Parliament.