Last Monday, newly-elected President Maia Sandu announced at a media conference that the former Minister of Finance during 2009 – 2013,  will become an economic adviser in the new presidential administration.

Veaceslav Negruța had previously been sentenced to three years in prison with suspension. ZdG asked the former Finance Minister if he thinks it is appropriate to accept the position of presidential adviser while being convicted in a case of abuse of office. Veaceslav Negruța told us that he contested the decision of the Court one year ago and submitted the case to ECtHR. 

In March 2016, the Supreme Court of Justice sentenced Ex-Minister of Finance Veaceslav Negruța to three years in prison with suspension for abuse of office, preventing him from having the right to hold public office for five years.

Veaceslav Negruța was tried for abuse of office. During his term as minister, he did not appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice against a Chișinău Court of Appeal decision, by which Pantelei Sandulachi, a deputy in the first Parliament, received material and non-pecuniary damages of 400,000 euros and allowed the enforcement of the decision when it was not yet final. Consequently, 400,000 euros were transferred to Sandulachi’s account. Sandulachi was then a member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova, the party that had delegated Negruța to the position of minister.

Although the Supreme Court of Justice annulled that decision, stating that the former deputy was to receive only 1000 euros in damages, the money that went into his account was not recovered.

 “The adviser position is not of a civil servant in the classical sense.”

ZdG asked the former Finance Minister if he thinks it is appropriate to accept the position of presidential adviser while being convicted in a case of abuse of office. Veaceslav Negruța told us that he submitted the case to Chișinău Court for review, “The question is whether there was a criminal record. That decision has been contested and is in the review process,” said the former Minister of Finance.

Veaceslav Negruța does not think that the 2015 sentence may impede in exercising public office. “The adviser position is not of a civil servant in the classic sense. It is counseling offered to a person holding high office. Considering this reason and the fact that the case of office abuse decision you refer to is under review, it is not an impediment, I think,” mentioned Negruța. 

ZdG found that in June 2018, Veaceslav Negruța appealed to review the 2015 sentence. The Constitutional Court had found that the provisions that served as the basis for his sentence were unconstitutional. Therefore, the former minister considers that “the sentence is to be subject to review and reclassification by the constitutional norms.” 

In court, when the admissibility of the request was examined, the prosecutor classified it as unfounded, while the civil party, Sandulachi Pantelei, supported it and requested its admission. By a decision in 2019, the court granted the request for review.

Negruța: Maia Sandu took into consideration the existence of the case

Veaceslav Negruța claims that President Maia Sandu considered his implication in the case of office abuse: “This has been a high-profile case since 2012 because since then several things happened and they explain why certain actions started against a minister of finance who was in office. These are details that are of no interest now but they will be of interest after we complete the re-examination procedure.”

Veaceslav Negruța added that he contested the Supreme Court of Justice decision at the European Court of Human Rights, but there is still no decision in this regard.

A timeline of Veaceslav Negruța’s sentence

In 2012, the Chișinău Court of Appeal judges ordered the state to pay Pantelei Sandulachi for material damages of 400,000 euros. The Ministry of Finance did not contest the decision at the Supreme Court of Justice and transferred the amount according to the Court of Appeal order. Later, the prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice, which ruled in 2012, that Pantelei Sandulachi’s compensation was 1,000 euros, and he had to return the previously received sum of 400,000 euros to the state.

In 2015, one of the Chișinău districts’ Courts sentenced Ex-Minister of Finance Veaceslav Negruța in the criminal case for abuse of office. The institution announced then that Negruța will not be able to hold public office for five years.

Next year, the Supreme Court of Justice magistrates upheld the sentence by which Veaceslav Negruța, ex-Minister of Finance, was sentenced to three years in prison with suspension in the case of the record damages of 400,000 euros, granted to Pantelei Sandulachi.

Asked by ZdG, the representatives of the Action and Solidarity Party mentioned that “Veaceslav Negruța was sentenced in 2015 by an unfair judiciary, upon a political order, because he raised questions about the frauds and thefts committed by the old oligarchic regime. Even so, by the time of his appointment as advisor to the President of Moldova, Mr. Negruța’s legal prohibitions to hold the mentioned position will have expired. Maia Sandu knows Mr. Negruța as an integral person, who has always respected the law and as a good specialist in economic issues.”