Over 80 nongovernmental organizations that form the National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum urge the Constitutional Court to urgently reverse its decisions adopted during June 7-9 and “reinstate legality”. In a public statement issued today, the NGOs call for all constitutional judges to resign, so as “to restore confidence in the Constitutional Court and to stabilize the situation in the country.”
The Platform in particular notes the controversial CC decision that interpreted the three months’ deadline before Parliament can be dissolved as meaning 90 days. This contradicts the general legal rule, says the Platform. As a result, the deadline has been moved from June 9 to June 7. What’s more, notes the Platform, the CC chose to issue its 90 days’ interpretation on June 7 in the evening, the very day the deadline was about to expire, as per the Court’s calculation. This is despite the fact that the Court received the request for constitutional interpretation on May 22.
The statement further observes that the Court interpreted the President’s prerogative to dissolve Parliament as an obligation, without examining whether other conditions imposed by the Constitution were met, such as consulting the parliamentary groups.
On June 8, the Court invalidated the election of the Speaker and the designation of the Prime Minister. The Platform notes that the ruling came in less than an hour after those appointments were voted in Parliament and even before they were signed and published. “No judge that is independent can annul an act that he or she doesn’t have on his or her desk yet”.
Further, on June 9, the Constitutional Court acted on a request from the Democratic Party and allowed the (arguably still acting) prime minister Pavel Filip to also act as president and dissolve Parliament. According to the Platform, “this ruling was issued in the absence of the government representative and of the claimant, in an unannounced sitting that lasted less than five minutes”. The Platform also notes that the Court decided to suspend the powers of the incumbent president Igor Dodon without even giving him the chance to formally refuse to disband Parliament himself.
According to the statement, “the behavior of the Constitutional Court on June 7, 8 and 9 confirms that the institution has compromised its constitutional role by acting exclusively in the interest of a political party”.
