The Constitutional Court declared inadmissible judge Domnica Manole’ s request to revise the decisions of August 19 whereby Vladimir Turcan was elected CC Chairman and Liuba Șova was appointed caretaker for when Turcan needs to be away. According to a CC statement, the court took that decision at the meeting held on August 20, IPN reports.
The author of the request claims that there is a reasonable suspicion regarding the secret ballot for the position of Constitutional Court Chairman. According to her, the suspicions about the legality of the decisions taken can be verified and eliminated only by revising.
The Court noted that the reason mentioned for revising, stipulated in Article 72 of the Constitutional Jurisdiction Code, refers to the emergence of new circumstances, unknown at the time of the ruling. Therefore, the Court has to find out whether the circumstances invoked by judge Domnica Manole are likely to significantly change the decision.
In order to elucidate the existence of circumstances which would fundamentally change the decision, the Court requested a clarification from judge Liuba Șova, on whose claims the request of judge Domnica Manole was based.
Judge Liuba Șova submitted to the Court an explanation that, at the time of the vote, she "had confidence in the legality, independence and impartiality of this process [i.e. the voting process]”. She believed that "the result of the secret vote expressed at the Court’s plenary is fair and legal" and said that she did not question it from a procedural point of view.
Judge Liuba Șova claimed that she received phone messages from a person whose identity she did not reveal, messages that, however, she did not read before the voting process, but only on Monday (August 19, 2019), after working hours. Finally, Judge Liuba Șova said that the vote was not influenced.
The court considered that the circumstances invoked by judge Domnica Manole as the basis for revising are not sufficient to change the essence of the Constitutional Court Decisions no. AG-6 and AG-7 dated August 19, 2019.
