The Chisinau Court of Appeal annulled the decision of the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) of November 2019 on the issuance of the consent to carry out criminal prosecution actions – search, forced arrest, detention and arrest – against Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) judge Oleg Sternioală, as well as his suspension from his position as judge and vice-chairman of the Civil, Commercial and Administrative Dispute Panel of the SCJ.

According to ZdG sources, the decision was taken on Monday, January 22, by the panel consisting of Ecaterina Palanciuc, Veronica Negru and Ina Dutca, the same judges who recently annulled the order of the Commission for Exceptional Situations (CSE) by which the candidates of the Chance party were excluded from the elections.

The magistrate resigned from office in December 2019, receiving a one-off allowance of 309 thousand lei upon his release.

Oleg Sternioală, while being a judge at the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ), was detained on 4 November 2019, being investigated in a criminal case initiated on the fact of money laundering in particularly large proportions.

The prosecutor’s office informed at the time that “the basis for the initiation of the criminal proceedings were the journalistic investigations into the magistrate’s assets, the materials of the operational analysis and the prosecutor’s self-report”. Specifically, the law enforcement authorities initiated criminal proceedings three and a half years after ZdG wrote that the judge was living in an undeclared luxury property registered in the name of his retired parents.

Sternioală’s detention and investigation was made possible after the SCM approved on 4 November 2019 the decision on the issuance of the consent for criminal liability and the carrying out of criminal prosecution actions – of search, compulsory arrest, detention and arrest against him, as well as his suspension from the position of judge and from the position of vice-president of the civil, commercial and administrative disputes panel of the SCJ. On the same day, Sternioală took the SCM to court, seeking the annulment of the decision.

In December 2020, in the dispute between the SCM and Oleg Sternioală, the Chisinau Court of Appeal announced on its website that a hearing would be held. However, the hearing was postponed, and on 30 December 2020 the court announced that the hearing was postponed and the case was sent “to the registry for examination of the request for recusal”. This was followed by the recusal of Judge Veronica Negru and her replacement by Magistrate Ion Muruianu, the postponement of several court hearings due to the special regime established by an order of the President of the Chisinau CA Vladislav Clima, dismissed in the meantime by President Maia Sandu, and on 30 June 2021 Sternioală asked for the case to be transferred to another court of equal rank.

In October 2021, the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) announced that investigations had been ordered to determine the progress of the investigations and the reasons that led to the delay in providing legal solutions in reasonable terms on the criminal cases concerning the criminal acts of illicit enrichment allegedly committed by former judges Ion Druță and Oleg Sternioală, the former head of the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organised Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS), Nicolae Chitoroagă, and former Democratic Party of Moldova MP Constantin Țuțu. The prosecutor’s office did not come forward with further information afterwards.

The information gathered by prosecutors showed that the magistrate, together with his family members, acquired legal income of about 7 million lei during a reference period, but during the same period, Oleg Sternioală, together with his family members, bought luxury goods worth about 13.8 million lei.

According to the prosecutors’ suspicions, the difference of about 6.7 million between the suspect’s income and expenses constitutes illicit assets, which have been concealed, and their nature and origin is disguised by transcribing the ownership to third parties.

Oleg Sternioală submitted a request to resign from the position of judge, which was approved by the Parliament at the plenary session on 19 December 2019.

Prosecutor Roman Statniy, who handled the criminal case against former judge Oleg Sternioala, left the system in February 2020.