The contest to fill the post of head of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) was useless when there is no Superior Council of Prosecutors that would have gone through pre-vetting, which would assess the integrity and professionalism of candidates, said the leader of the Party of Change Ștefan Gligor. According to the politician, the scandal around this contest discredits the whole justice sector reform launched by the Party of Action and Solidarity, IPN reports.
Ștefan Gligor noted that if the candidates for PCCOCS chief had gone through serious integrity and professionalism testing, such a failure wouldn’t have been witnessed. The failed contest reveals the resistance put up by the system.
“What happens today is the consequence of a superficial if not mediocre approach to the justice sector reform in the Republic of Moldova. After the parliamentary elections of 2021, the PAS didn’t realize that this system should be fully dismantled and that new anticorruption institutions should be built. The keeping of the anticorruption institutions that were servile to the regime of Plahotniuc can lead only to the discrediting of the justice sector reform. The contest for PCCOCS chief was useless. Each person admitted to the contest should have been thoroughly examined by checking the work done the last 5-7 years and the case files they examined. The pre-selection commission does not have such duties,” Ștefan Gligor stated in the program “Secrets of the Power” on JurnalTV channel.
Iulian Groza, former member of the commission for the pre-selection of candidates for PCCOCS head, said he was blackmailed and intimidated by one of the candidates. On Wednesday, he, Iulian Groza, and the other members of the pre-selection commission resigned.
“The situation around the contest to fill the post of PCCOCS chief is symptomatic of the gravity of things inside the system. I regret having found myself between the fires of different interest groups in this sector. However, as I was assigned by the President of the Republic of Moldova to sit on this commission, I accepted. But in the online environment – the Telegram becomes increasingly popular in our country – I saw attempts to discredit and intimidate me. I was warned they wanted to discredit me, to suspend me from the commission and to start a criminal case against me as I was an inconvenient person and purportedly decided already not to support Mister Rurac. I do not know any of the candidates. I didn’t have the occasion of communicating with them. I only informed the SCP about these circumstances as the intimidation, the attempts to blackmail me were very clear,” said the director of the Institute for European Policies and Reforms (IPRE) Iulian Groza.
The Presidential Office’s representative in the pre-selection commission Iulian Groza is blamed for the fact that the institution he heads illegally obtained access to personal data of Eugen Rurac, former candidate for PCCOCS chief. The ex-head of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office Viorel Morari said such an illegality should be penalized.
“The accessing of the personal data of a person with whom you do not have any connection is an illegality. The prosecutors are punished for such deeds. There were situations when the prosecutors were blackmailed for illegally accessing personal data of a person who didn’t have any tie with the investigation. Based on what law a public association was allowed access? As you had access to secret, confidential information, you discredited it. When you break the law, you must assume responsibility and suffer the consequences,” stated Viorel Morari.
Earlier, in a press release the IPRE explained that an expert contracted by the organization mistakenly accessed confidential information about Eugen Rurac back in the period during which the candidates for the post of member of the Superior Council of Proctors were being examined. The contest to fill the post of PCCOCS chief was annulled after the members of the pre-selection commission resigned, while candidate Eugen Rurac withdrew from the competition.
