Fines for corruption offences should be increased and correlated both with the income and property of the offenders, the value of the undue benefit obtained, as well as the damage caused. At the same time, the guilty of corruption offences should be deprived of the right to hold any public office. These are the conclusions of a study developed with the support of a project that is implemented by UNDP Moldova, IPN reports.
The authors of the study are Tilman Hoppe, international anticorruption expert and Lilian Apostol, national expert. The authors of the study note that the legislation of most countries in the region provides for severe maximum punishment for serious corruption offences. At the same time, fines are seen to be more efficient than prison sentences. In the Republic of Moldova, according to some studies of the National Anticorruption Centre (NAC), the fines are applied in 71% of cases of corruption and “real” punishment with imprisonment is applied in not more than 16% of all cases.
The authors recommend discontinuing the practice of “cutting in half” the fines, applied for milder or less serious crimes, if paid within 72 hours from the date when the judgment becomes enforceable. According to them, a reduction by 50% is excessive in the context of fight against corruption.
The authors of the study refer to the possibility of creating specialized anti-corruption courts that are a relatively new phenomenon; most of such courts being established in the last decade. In many countries, this mechanism allows the selection of most capable judges to examine cases of corruption and/or those who are continuously trained in the area, and to speed-up the processing of corruption cases, many jurisdictions impose deadlines.
The study notes that Moldovan general courts are overwhelmed in particular with cases of large-scale corruption: prominent defendants in corruption cases hire on average six different lawyers. They use any possible way of delaying and obstructing a trial. In these circumstances, it is obvious that a general court with an overload of cases and a tight trial schedule is quickly overwhelmed and possibly inclined to give in to at least some of the tactics of the “army” of lawyers of defendants, the authors of the study claim.
