On Tuesday, 14 February 2023, the Superior Council of Magistracy accepted the resignation applications submitted by 16 judges of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ). “Following the judges’ resignations, 5 judges will actually work at the Supreme Court of Justice in the Civil, Commercial and Administrative Disputes College and 3 judges in the Criminal College, taking into account that one judge is seconded to the CSM,” the court warned in a press release.

In April, only eight judges will serve on the CSJ. The examination of dozens of cases could be delayed

The plenary of the Superior Council of the Magistracy (CSM) accepted on Tuesday 14 February requests for the honourable resignation of 16 judges from the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ). It is the largest resignation from the CSJ in its history.

Ala Cobăneanu, Svetlana Filincova, Iurie Diaconu, Victor Boico and Victor Burduh will leave the judiciary on 1 March 2023; Elena Cobzac – from 13 March 2023, and Nadejda Toma, Liliana Catan, Maria Ghervas, Galina Stratulat, Iurie Bejenaru and Ghenadie Plămădeală – from 31 March 2023. At the same time, the CSM accepted the resignation applications submitted by Victor Micu, Luiza Gafton and Petru Moraru, all three judges at the CSJ, seconded members of the CSM, who requested to be approved for resignation from 3 April 2023. The resignation request submitted by Anatolie Galben, another CSM member, a judge seconded from the Chisinau Court of Appeal (CA), was also accepted.

Also at the same meeting, the CSM Plenary accepted the request for the honourable resignation of Judge Nina Vascan, dated 17 March 2023, in relation to reaching the age limit.

“Under these circumstances, after the resignation of the above-mentioned judges, on the indicated date (1 March/13 March/17 March/31 March/3 April), 5 judges within the Civil, Commercial and Administrative Disputes Panel and 3 judges within the Criminal Panel will effectively work at the CSJ, taking into account that one judge is seconded to the CSM,” a CSJ statement said.

Ilie Chirtoaca, president of the Centre for Legal Resources of Moldova: “It seems that we are witnessing sabotage in the face of ongoing reforms”

The Centre for Legal Resources of Moldova (CRJM), an organisation that monitors justice reform, has come up with an explanation after the chain of resignations in the judiciary. “This seems to be driven by the reform of the CSJ which is supposed to start in March. The reform involves the evaluation of all current judges of the CSJ, similar to the pre-vetting procedure. Most of the resignations will take effect in March and it is not excluded that more departures from the CSJ will follow,” the organisation’s explanation reads.

“We can only speculate at this point, in the absence of an official reaction from the CSM and the CSJ, but it seems that we are witnessing sabotage in the face of ongoing reforms. Regarding the resignations of CSJ judges: given that the law on vetting CSJ judges is set to be voted on in March, the resignations would be a safe-exit for CSJ judges who do not want to be vetted. The fact that they resign before the law comes in, allows them to receive the one-off severance pay, remain in good standing, go into other professions, e.g. – get their law license, etc. Those who will remain in the system, but will not pass vetting, risk sanctions – bans of up to 7 years, tarnished reputation, other risks… Of course, resignations at this stage also bring additional benefits: a possible delay of decisions on appeals filed against the pre-vetting commission, other notorious cases such as the “kuliok” case against former President Dodon and many other cases pending at the CSJ, which will now be deadlocked, or will have to be restarted from the beginning”, says Ilie Chirtoaca.

“Secondly, another thing seems to have been done in concert – the resignation of four members of the CSM. This could be related to the next General Assembly of Judges. If the assembly fails to have a quorum on 17 March, those who have to announce a new date for the General Assembly will be the CSM – which is unclear whether it will have a quorum. This could practically mean blocking the election of the next CSM. This risk could be mitigated by further legislative intervention, but that is taking time, especially as we still do not have a plenipotentiary government. Some say that some judges at the CSJ will revoke their decision… if they get “guarantees”. Of course, at the moment, this is pure speculation and we have no evidence,” says the president of the CRJM.

The resignations, days after the Ministry of Justice presented the draft evaluation of judges at the CSJ

The resignations of the 16 CSJ judges came a few days after the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) announced in a press release that it had presented the draft law on the mechanism for the extraordinary evaluation of judges and candidates for the position of CSJ judge to the judges of the CSJ, CA and the courts of first instance, representatives of the Lawyers’ Union, civil society and development partners. The MoJ announced that the draft had been drafted and adjusted in line with the recommendations of the Venice Commission.

“The reform of the CSJ is part of the list of priorities of the Moldovan Government in the justice sector. In this regard, the present draft law was elaborated, which was consulted twice by the Venice Commission, and all comments were incorporated into the draft which is currently in the final approval phase”, said Sergiu Litvinenco, then Minister of Justice.

During the discussions, the Secretary of State of the MoJ, Veronica Mihailov-Moraru, spoke about the need to establish greater safeguards for judges and candidates for the position of judge of the CSJ than those in the pre-vetting exercise, so as to exclude cases of failure to pass the evaluation for minor fiscal irregularities. “The objective of our discussions is to improve this mechanism for verifying the ethical and financial integrity of future members of the CSJ, to jointly identify the clearest possible formulas for evaluating the subjects of the evaluation and to establish an admissible margin of difference between the income and expenses declared by the candidates,” said Veronica Mihailov-Moraru, who has been Minister of Justice in the Recean government since 16 February.

Most judges avoid explaining their resignations

ZdG has learned that during the meeting with the judges, some of them asked the authorities to postpone the vote on the law on the CSJ, but the representatives of the MoJ told them that the law would be approved by the end of March, so the judges, dissatisfied with the results of the discussion, chose to resign.

Three days after that meeting, the Gavrilița government, which included Sergiu Litvinenco, resigned. Even so, the draft law on the mechanism of extraordinary evaluation of judges and candidates for the position of judge of the CSJ would go to approval.

ZdG tried to talk to some of the CSJ judges who resigned. Some did not return phone calls and others refused to give reasons for leaving the judiciary.

Victor Micu, a member of the CSM and a judge at the CSJ, says his resignation would have nothing to do with the extraordinary evaluation of CSJ judges that could start in March.

“The reason is that I want to change my work. I wanted to leave in the autumn, but the problem was that if I had left, there was no quorum at the CSM and now it is time to resign. I want to continue with my teaching or something else. There are also family issues,” Micu said.

Dorel Musteață, interim president of the CSM, declined to comment on the mass departures from the CSJ.

Ion Arhiliuc, a former judge at the CSJ, in a message published on his Facebook account believes that “serious consequences are beginning for the act of justice at all stages of judicial processes, for a State of Law. No European country has suffered such serious consequences in the implementation of judicial reform. It was known that judges are not “imported” from other countries, so it was necessary from the beginning to select and prepare other professional candidates”, considers the former magistrate.

President of the Lawyers’ Union: “The judicial system is practically blocked”

Dorin Popescu, president of the Union of Lawyers of Moldova, believes that the chain of departures from the CSJ is a huge problem for the judiciary, because “the judicial system is practically blocked”. Dorin Popescu believes that 60% of the judges at the CSJ have resigned because of possible changes to the law on the status of judges.

“I still don’t understand what the impetus was behind the departure of several judges from the CSJ. For us it is a serious problem, because we have many cases on the CSJ’s docket, which have in fact been paralyzed and whose solutions, decisions are awaited. Probably, the departure of many judges is related to some changes to be made to the Law on the Status of Judges or something else. Another reason could be, in the context of justice reform, maybe they were asked to leave (…). I don’t think the judges at the CSJ could be afraid of this assessment. I don’t think that is the reason. They did not consult with us, the lawyers, before leaving, so I cannot tell you exactly what the reason is. Some of the judges are really at retirement age and, probably, there could be some changes to the law concerning the aspect of judges’ pensions, because we have already had this experience, when several years ago there were waves of judges who left, because the law on pensions was being changed”, said Dorin Popescu.

The President of the Lawyers’ Union believes that representatives of the state authorities “must be more careful in their statements when they make public messages” against judges.

“If we follow the logic that they are afraid of vetting, then we can believe under this slogan that tomorrow all judges will leave the system. In my opinion, representatives of the state authorities should be more careful in their statements when they make public messages. Just as lawyers are all blamed, with the widespread idea that all lawyers defend criminals, so are judges. When we talk about the judiciary, we are not talking about a thing that is not a wall, a fence, a block. People work in the system who have families, who have children, who have a lot of work behind them, and when someone comes along who has been working for two years and says that the system is rotten, that they are all corrupt, dirty, generalizing, even though the claims are probably only a few, that you can count them on your fingers… I don’t know, maybe this negative energy builds up and at some point they rage that all judges leave the system. For the judiciary it’s a huge problem, because it basically locks up the judicial system. This is serious (…)”, added Popescu.

What the law on the evaluation of judges and candidates for the position of judge of the CSJ entails

The draft law on the mechanism of extraordinary evaluation of judges and candidates for the position of judge of the CSJ implies that judges of the CSJ, in office at the date of entry into force of the law, including those suspended from office, as well as candidates for the position of judge of the CSJ, will be evaluated. The evaluation commission will take into account the wealth, expenses, income of close persons, as defined in the Law on the declaration of wealth and personal interests. At the same time, the draft law establishes that judges and candidates for the position of judge of the CSJ who have previously passed the integrity assessment and judges who, within 20 days of the entry into force of the law, submit a request for resignation are not subject to the assessment.

The evaluation commission is to be composed of 6 members, appointed by a vote of 3/5 of the elected deputies: 3 members, citizens of the Republic of Moldova – proposed by the parliamentary factions, respecting the proportional representation of the majority and the opposition, and 3 other members – proposed by the development partners.

The draft law assumes that the subject under evaluation does not meet the requirements of ethical integrity, if the members of the Commission have serious doubts that he or she has seriously violated the rules of ethics and professional conduct, if there are reasonable suspicions that he or she has committed acts of corruption, or if he or she has violated the legal regime on the declaration of assets and personal interests, conflicts of interest, incompatibilities.

At the same time, it is considered that a candidate “does not meet the criterion of financial integrity, if the members of the Commission have serious doubts that the candidate’s wealth has been declared in the manner established by law, if the difference between wealth, expenses and income over the last 15 years does not exceed 10 average salaries per economy and if in the last 10 years the candidate has not admitted tax irregularities, as a result of which the unpaid tax exceeded 3 average salaries per economy”.

Judges and judicial candidates who do not pass the assessment excluded from the judiciary for five or seven years

The draft law also provides that the CSJ must examine the results of the judge’s evaluation in a public meeting, based on the evaluation file received from the Evaluation Commission. At the hearing, the judge may present additional information he/she considers relevant, only if he/she confirms that he/she was unable to present it previously. In a reasoned decision adopted no later than 30 days after receipt of the documents, the CSM either accepts the report of the Evaluation Committee and decides whether or not to promote the evaluation, or rejects the report of the Evaluation Committee and orders, once only, the evaluation procedure of the judge to be resumed, if circumstances are found which could have led to the promotion or, as the case may be, the non-promotion of the evaluation. The decision may be appealed by the judge concerned to the CSJ within 5 days of receipt of the reasoned decision.

The draft law states that the CSM’s decision on the non-promotion of the evaluation has the effect of dismissing the judge. At the same time, the dismissed judge shall not be entitled to exercise the office of judge for 7 years, to be admitted and to exercise the professions of prosecutor, lawyer, notary, authorized administrator, bailiff, as well as to hold offices of public dignity for 5 years from the date of the final decision of the CSM.