The Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) accepted at its meeting on Tuesday, June 13, the request for the resignation of Judge Alexandru Sandu from the Chisinau Court on June 19.

Asked by members of the SCM what the reason for his resignation was, the magistrate said that “the time has come” and that “this is the law”.

“At 51 I have the right. I have a window, by 1 July I have the right to resign to get a pension. I think I’m becoming a bit vulnerable in front of the judiciary, because the question arises: if the pension is almost equal to the salary, and I stay on to work, what is Judge Sandu doing at work? That’s the law, I’m sorry”, said Alexandru Sandu.

He also said that “vulnerability would remain” even if judges’ salaries were to be increased after the changes to the state budget law for 2023, because “that’s the law on retirement”. The judge said he currently has 201 cases under consideration.

According to the statement of assets and personal interests for the year 2022, the judge raised a salary of over 253 thousand lei, about 21 thousand monthly.

Magistrate Sandu began his career as a magistrate in 2003 at the Ialoveni Court, when he was appointed as a judge by decree of then Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin for a five-year term. Subsequently, in 2008, he was appointed Vice-President of the Ialoveni Court for a four-year term and judge until he reached the age limit. Since January 2017, for one year, the magistrate has exercised the duties of investigating judge at the Court of Hâncești, Ialoveni seat. During this period, Sandu submits to the College for the Selection and Career of Judges (CSCJ) the documents and the file, requesting both transfer to a court of the same level, i.e. to the Chisinau Court, and promotion to a higher court, i.e. to the Chisinau CA.

The College then admitted Sandu’s application to take part in the competition in both cases. In May 2019, Alexandru Sandu was appointed as a judge at the Chisinau Court of Appeals, following a competition with no counter-candidates. Subsequently, in July, he is appointed to the interim position of vice-president of the court.

ZdG has previously written that the judge has featured in several petitions, complaints and disciplinary proceedings, which were subsequently dismissed as unfounded. In 2011, the magistrate was given a disciplinary sanction – a “proposal for dismissal”. Subsequently, Sandu’s appeal was upheld and he received only a “reprimand”. Sandu’s name appears in a 2012 ZdG investigation as the judge who issued the ruling in the Moldova Agroindbank “raider attack” case, which is why he was also reprimanded. At the time, the magistrate told ZdG that he did not “consider he was wrong”.

“I am the antithesis of those people who have this “Moldovan arrogance”

In 2020, the Disciplinary College returned another case in which the magistrate was the subject of another disciplinary procedure to the Judicial Inspectorate for further verification. Asked by ZdG, the judge said that the Judicial Inspectorate rejected the referral this time as well. At the same time, Sandu said that “I am the antipode to those people who have this “Moldovan arrogance”, you know how: neither good day nor good evening, even if the person writes the complaint, even if it is officially not objective, somewhere the person may not have written the complaint for nothing”.

“The judiciary, sometimes, rightly hate our justice, not that we are white. I think that people like Yurii Sorochin (the lawyer who filed the complaint, editor’s note) should be in our country, because they are the ones who fix us and put us in order when we… We always have to be kept in tune, kept by people, to criticize us, because if people don’t criticize us and don’t criticize us, we spoil our work, we can’t work, we lose control, do you understand how?” the magistrate said.

Alexandru Sandu’s name is also included in a 2016 judgment by which Moldova was condemned at the ECtHR for lack of relevant and sufficient grounds for applying pre-trial detention, on the basis of which Moldova paid 3 thousand euros as moral damages. Asked by ZdG, Sandu said that “that was the law then”.

“At the time, these issues were not reflected and it was a common thing when people for particularly serious or exceptionally serious crimes were placed under arrest. That was the law at the time, that was the custom in the judicial system,” the magistrate said.

At the same time, the judge also figures in another case lost by Moldova at the ECtHR in 2019, under which the state paid the applicant 14 thousand euros. The ECtHR found that the trial court took too long to examine the applicant’s request on the establishment of the children’s domicile (one and a half years), which is too long considering the possible consequences on the relationship between the children and the parent who does not live with them.

In 2016, the CEPJ gave her a “good” rating after her performance evaluation, accumulating a total of 75 points.