The authorities of the Republic of Moldova implemented a part of the conditions put forward by the European Commission in the justice sector, but many aspects do not depend on the Government, said Minister of Justice Veronica Mihailov-Moraru. According to her, the Government and the Parliament adopted the laws needed for reforming the justice sector, but the implementation of these depends on other entities. The Republic of Moldova has time until the end of October to fulfill the commitments for the European Commission’s assessment to be positive, IPN reports.
The minister noted that she recently paid a visit to Brussels and explained to the European officials that the Republic of Moldova implemented only a part of the nine conditions.
“I discussed with representatives of the bodies of the European Commission, including the Commissioner for Justice whom I informed about the made progress. On the one hand, we fulfilled many of the undertaken commitments, but there are yet commitments that are being fulfilled. We also have overdue measures that do not yet depend on the Government. As regards the protection of human rights, we fulfilled the commitments. I refer to the improvement of the legislation on human rights, the Istanbul Convention, access to information, strengthening of the ombudsperson’s service. As to anticorruption, we fulfilled the condition to delimit the duties of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office and the NAC and the plan is to be carried out. The justice sector reform, which is the results of the vetting, pre-vetting commissions, is the most difficult one. We adopted laws and these should be now implemented and our bodies should do their job for the system to recover,” Veronica Mihailov-Moraru stated in the program “At 360 Degrees” on Radio Moldova station.
According to the minister, shortcomings are seen in the work of the vetting and pre-vetting commissions, which are independent entities. Also, the prosecutors are late in designating representatives to the Superior Council of Prosecutors as they wait for the pre-vetting commission to assess again the candidates who won cases at the Supreme Court of Justice.
“The work of the pre-vetting commission has lasted longer than planned. It now centers on the reassessment of 21 cases after the SCJ ordered to reexamine the decisions. The vetting commissions are to start work later. But we cannot hurry the processes as these commissions are independent and have their own work pace. In Brussels, we received maximum encouragement to continue the resolute pace we adopted at the beginning. We were recommended to consult the European committees, the Venice Commission on any bill, especially in the justice sector. They asked us why we do not have a Superior Council of Prosecutors and we explained that it does not depend on the Government. The Assembly of Prosecutors decided to put off the meeting until the decisions referring to those who failed the testing are reconsidered. A lot depends on the progress we will make until the end of October,” said Veronica Mihailov-Moraru.
Last week, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the European institutions to open the EU-Moldova accession negotiations by the end of this year. A final decision will be taken by the European Council in December.
