Constitutional Court judges argue their decision declaring the “Shor” Party unconstitutional. Details from the ruling
Representatives of the Constitutional Court (CC) published on Friday, June 30, the full ruling declaring the political party “Shor” unconstitutional. The High Court judges argue that the political party militated against “the principles of the rule of law, sovereignty and independence of Moldova”.
The CC judges note that after Ilan Shor illegally left the territory of Moldova in 2019 and was put under national and international search in connection with his 2017 conviction for causing material damage by fraud or breach of trust in particularly large proportions and money laundering in particularly large proportions, “the “Shor” party continued its activity of non-transparent financing in significant proportions and voter corruption”.
“Moreover, the Court notes that the documents presented show the extent of the circulation of financial means in the localities of the country. The persons acting on behalf of the party admitted that for each locality in the country there was a person responsible for the distribution of money, for example some persons were responsible for the southern region of the country, others for the northern region, etc. (…).
(…) In the cases recorded, it was found that between 2 000 000 and 3 000 000 money was sent to the party for distribution every month. Moreover, in some cases, the receipt and transmission of the money took place in the party’s territorial headquarters. Given that the party has an illegal system of distributing money throughout the country, the Court notes the extent of this phenomenon and its danger to democracy and the rule of law.
The investigative documents also show that the authorities have collected from persons acting in the interests of the party sums of money in excess of 2 500 000 lei. Moreover, the documents submitted show that various persons acting in the interests of the “Shor” Party were distributing money to party representatives in amounts exceeding 10 000 000 lei. From the documents analysed, it appears that one person received either personally or through intermediaries, in order to be distributed to party representatives, sums of money ranging from 3 000 000 lei to 8 000 000 lei (…),” the CC ruling states.
On 19 June 2023, the CC declared as unconstitutional the political party “Shor”. According to the High Court, the Political Party “Șor” is considered dissolved and no act of the bodies of this party, adopted after the ruling, has legal value. The Ministry of Justice will appoint a commission for the liquidation of the political party which will take all necessary measures to liquidate and remove this party from the State Register of Legal Entities.
After the High Court’s decision, the head of state said in a Facebook post that “the state institutions are going to analyse the considerations of the CC decision and take the next steps in order to respect and effectively implement this decision”.
“From this moment on, political parties will probably not be able to carry out political activity in Moldova in any way, with any violation of the law,” stressed lawyer Eduard Digore, representing the government in the process. And former fugitive MP Ilan Shor, leader of the party of the same name, sentenced by the Chisinau Court of Appeal to 15 years in prison, threatened that “none of the perpetrators of this illegality will escape”.
On 22 May 2023, the Parliament approved during its plenary session a package of decisions to implement the CC ruling declaring the “Shor” political party unconstitutional. Thus, as of that day, the faction of the Political Party “Shor” ceased to exist by right, and the representatives of the party were excluded from the composition of the Permanent Bureau of the Legislature and from the delegations of the Moldovan Parliament to international parliamentary organisations and bilateral parliamentary organisations.
