The Republic of Moldova again Penalized by ECHR

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned the Republic of Moldova in the case „Macovei and others vs. Moldova”, ascertaining the violation of the ECHR stipulations regarding the principle of juridical security and property rights. The Government was obliged to pay to 6 citizens of the Republic of Moldova 21 thousand euros. According to the lawyer of the Moldovan citizens, member of the “Jurists for Human Rights” organization, Vitalie Iordachi, as a background for handing in the claims constituted the fact the Insurance Company “ASITO” decided unilaterally to set aside the contracts signed with the claimants regarding the supplementary retiring insurance. The company refused to pay the insurance money because of the economic crisis from the country and the change of the refinancing rate of the National Bank. Vitalie Iordachi mentioned that initially the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) took a favourable decision for the claimants in this specific litigation, inclusively for those 6 citizens. But in March 2002, the SCJ plenum examined and satisfied the “for the law interest” step of the General Prosecutor Office, that solicited from the law court to give a favourable decision for the ASITO Company. After the Government informed on October 25, 2004 about the petitions to CEDO, the SCJ Plenum admitted the revision of a pensioners group petition insured with supplementary retiring pension by “ASITO”, others than the named claimants and annulled the Plenum’s decision from March 2002, added the quoted source. The court from Strasbourg ascertained the violation of the 6th article of ECHR (the juridical security principle) and of the art. 1 of the ECHR Protocol 1stipulations (violating the property rights) and obliged the Republic of Moldova to pay to each claimant 2 thousand euros for moral prejudices and in medium 1500 euros for material prejudices. This is the 31st ECHR condemning decision for the Republic of Moldova. By now the Government was imposed to pay moral and material compensations amounted to over 300 thousand euros and over 40 thousand euros for lawsuit expenses. In the last year the Court took 14 decisions referring to Moldova, compared to 11 decisions taken by this institution in the case of Moldova during the period 1999-2004.