Constitutional Court rules regulations on granting of license for selling scrap metal is constitutional

The Constitutional Court Tuesday rejected the application filed by the MP of the sixteenth legislature Valentina Cusnir, recognizing thus the constitutionality of the Government Decision of October 2002, which approves the regulations concerning the holding of the contest for granting licenses allowing to sell ferrous and nonferrous scarp metal and used or recycled storage batteries to economic entities operating in Moldova that do not have fiscal relations with the budgetary system and to export them, Info-Prim Neo reports. Valentina Cusnir did not attend the hearing. She challenged the constitutionality of the regulations, claiming that it runs counter to a number of constitutional and international norms. In her application, Cusnir says that the regulations provide discriminatory contest conditions, limit competition and erect barriers to the development of the business environment. The regulations ban the licensing of economic entities with working experience of less than 7 years, of companies that do not have an authorized capital of at least 3 million lei, etc. According to Valentina Cusnir, the regulations in fact favor one national economic entity – the state-owned company SA Metalferos, which has been the only winner of the contests since 2002. However, the Government’s permanent representative to the Constitutional Court, Deputy Minister of Justice Nicolae Esanu stated that the regulations do not run counter to Moldova’s Constitution and its international commitments. He said that the regulations impose restrictions on the Transnistrian economic entities, whose activity can be hardly checked by the Moldovan authorities. At the same time, the Government resorted to certain restrictions in order to guarantee a right provided in the Constitution – the people’s right to a healthy environment. According to judge Victor Puscas, at the request of the Constitutional Court, the Center for Combating Corruption and Economic Crime (CCCEC) formulated a critical viewpoint and recommended the Government to modify the contest participation rules. Mircea Esanu said that the Center was created in 2002 and the anticorruption examination of the normative and legislative documents was not compulsory then. “The CCCEC pronounces not only on corruptibility, but also on the opportunity of amending the regulations, which is not right,” the deputy minister said. After deliberations, the Constitutional Court ruled that the Government Decision of 2002 was constitutional. The decision is definitive and comes into force when pronounced.