The Prosecutor’s Office Law that was drafted in 2016 is a step forward compared with the legislation in the field that existed earlier, but it needs amendments. The mechanism governing the functioning of the prosecution system should be modified. The issue was developed by jurists and MPs invited to the program “Expertise hour” on Jurnal TV channel, IPN reports.
Anticorruption expert Mariana Kalughin said she is not satisfied with the Prosecutor’s Office Law worked out in 2016. However, this law is an essential step forward compared with what was there earlier. “A number of problems appeared meanwhile and the modification of this law could be yet examined,” she stated.
As to the idea of naming a European prosecutor to manage the Prosecutor General’s Office, Mariana Kalughin said this can bring about a change at the institution. “Evidently, a lot depends on the character and this is the most important aspect so that this person could generate the feelings of safety and independence of prosecutors,” she noted.
Jurist Pavel Midrigan said the prosecution service reform should not be addressed in such a simplistic way. A thorough analysis should be conducted, including together with civil society, so as to see the expectations of the prosecutor’s office as an institution at the current development stage of society. The institution functioning mechanisms should be changed, not yet the prosecutor general.
MP of the Bloc ACUM Sergiu Litvinenko said the law is not bad, but the way of implementing it was mistaken from the start. He referred to the procedure for choosing the prosecutor general, which he considers incorrect. “Owing to the so-called contest to choose the prosecutor general, the justice sector reform was doomed to failure from the start,” he noted.
ACUM MP Lilian Carp agreed that the law of 2016 is a step forward compared with what existed earlier, but said that particular actions taken by the government led to the suspension of foreign financing for the justice system. “There is this illusion that the law is fully defective. This law has good aspects too, but there are things that should be changed, as regards the collective responsibility of the appointment of the prosecutor general and a broader control of the work of prosecutors on the part of a number of institutions,” stated the MP.
On May 28, a group of MPs of the Bloc ACUM Platform DA and PAS initiated public consultations where a series of amendments to the Prosecutor’s Office Law were proposed for debates.
