Comrat Court of Appeal has ruled in the case of bribery of five judges

The Comrat Court of Appeal has decided to partially overturn the sentence of the Chisinau Buiucani court of 17 March 2021 in the criminal corruption case in which five female magistrates were acquitted.

Thus, the panel composed of Dmitrii Fujenco, Andrei Mironov and Ștefan Starciuc was admitted, on 28 June 2023, the appeal filed by the lawyer of the suspended Chisinau Court of Appeal magistrate Liubovi Brînza. The Comrat Court of Appeal decided to acquit her on the basis of Article 325 para. (3) letter a1) of the Criminal Code (conventionally called Scarlat), “on the grounds that the existence of the crime was not established”.

Previously, the first court decided that the criminal proceedings against Liubovi Brînza were terminated on the basis of Art. 45 para. (1), 325 par. (3) lit. a1 ) Criminal Code (conventionally called Scarlat episode), on the grounds that “there are other circumstances that exclude or condition the initiation of criminal proceedings and criminal liability”.

At the same time, the appeals filed by the prosecutor in the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office Irina Gheorghiștean, by the lawyer of the judicial assistant Vitalii Furtuna and Vitalii Furtuna, as well as the appeals filed by the injured parties Gheorghe Parpalac and Lia Parpalac were rejected as unfounded.

For the rest, the judgment of the Chisinau Buiucani court of 17 March 2021 was upheld. The decision of the Comrat Court of Appeal is final and enforceable from the moment of its pronouncement, but with the right to
appeal within 30 days to the Supreme Court of Justice from the time of the reasoned decision.

Bribery case for five judges. The prosecutor handling the case has appealed the sentence to the Court of Appeal only in respect of two judges: Tizu and Brânză. The other three got off scot-free.
ZdG wrote in May 2021 that Galina Moscalciuc, Ludmila Ouș and Victoria Hadârcă, judges charged in the corruption case filed in October 2018, were acquitted definitively by a panel of judges of the Chisinau Court of Appeals, as the prosecutor handling the case did not appeal the decision to the Chisinau Court of Appeals on the grounds that “the state prosecution considered that the sentence was well-founded against them”.

At the time, Elena Cazacov, the prosecutor handling the case, told us, at the request of Ziarul de Gardă, that the sentence had been appealed only against judges Svetlana Tizu and Liubovi Brânză.

“The sentence was appealed in part as initially announced. It has been appealed in respect of Ms Svetlana Tizu, in respect of Ms Liubovi Brînză and in respect of Furtună Vitalie. The state prosecution considered that the sentence was well founded in respect of those persons,” the prosecutor told ZdG.

As for the magistrates Galina Moscalciuc and Victoria Hadârcă, for whom the prosecutor did not appeal the sentence to the Chisinau Court of Appeal, the members of the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) admitted on 18 May 2021, the magistrates’ requests for their reinstatement. Thus, according to the SCM, Judge Galina Moscalciuc was then reinstated at the Chisinau Court of Appeal and Judge Victoria Hadarca at the Chisinau Court of Appeal, Centre seat.

On 21 April, the Chisinau Court, Buiucani seat published the reasoned sentence on the acquittal of magistrates Galina Moscalciuc, Svetlana Tizu, Liubovi Brânză, Ludmila Ouș and Victoria Hadârcă, the five judges indicted in the corruption case filed in October 2018.

In the 416-page reasoned decision of the Chisinau Court, it is stated that the five judges charged in the case are innocent, the judges stating that as a result of the analysis of the evidence, from the point of view of their corroboration, they came to the conclusion that the five magistrates should be acquitted because the existence of the crime was not found.

Acquittals in the bribery case for five judges, predicted by the requests of the prosecutor in the case

The acquittal of the five magistrates was predictable. In December 2020, ZdG wrote that the prosecutor handling the case had asked the court, during court proceedings, to acquit the five magistrates on the charge of passive bribery. The state prosecutor, however, asked for their conviction for knowingly pronouncing a decision contrary to the law, and for Liubovi Brînză he asked for a sentence of three years’ imprisonment in a closed prison for women, a fine of 42.5 thousand lei, with deprivation of the right to hold public office for 10 years.

In March 2019, in this case, the doctor Vadim Scarlat was sentenced to a non-custodial sentence. He admitted offering a bribe of 2 thousand euros and told the court how the money circulated. According to the information in the reasoned decision issued earlier in Vadim Scarlat’s name, the doctor and the judicial assistant Vitalii Furtună had known each other for about two years, the doctor having provided services to his wife during her pregnancy and the birth of her children. Knowing that Furtună had legal knowledge, Scarlat approached him for advice in a criminal case in which he was involved, concerning the death of a newborn baby.

According to the indictment, the forensic expert’s report showed a causal link between the child’s death and the negligent actions of the doctor. In his defence, the doctor requested an expert opinion from the committee, but the committee came to different conclusions from the first. To put an end to the differences, the parents of the deceased newborn requested, through the prosecutor, an independent expert opinion in Bucharest, but their request was not accepted by the court. To prevent the expert’s report from being admitted, the doctor resorted to bribing the judge, who ultimately rejected the requests of both the prosecutor and the parents of the deceased child.