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President Voronin Criticizes Judicial System: Justly? LEGALLY?! .

By Alexei Ghertescu

Recently President Voronin took part in the annual meeting of judges. During the meeting he made some statements commenting the quality of work of Moldavian courts. Some of them are worth mentioning.

The most noticeable (IMHO) statement referred to judgments of the European Court for Human Rights against Moldova. The President said that the judgments adopted by the ECHR against Moldova in which it recognizes violations of the European Convention for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms harms our country's image. And added that judges who are guilty of such judgments should be punished according to the current legislation...

- Wow!!!! Here I have some questions!!!

1. Does the President know that a lot of ECHR's judgments have no relation with the quality of work of our courts and judgments adopted by them? So far, in a very considerable amount of judgments the ECHR held that Moldova is guilty of non-enforcement of Moldavian courts' decisions. And this is not a problem of judicial system. The fact is that many judicial acts are simply not enforced in the proper way and the European Court fairly ascertains violation of art. 6 para. 1 of the European Convention.

2. Does the President care about the country's image that exist among its own citizens? It seems from the words of Mr. Voronin that he is concerned only about the image of Moldova beyond its borders, the image "harmed" by ECHR's judgments. Does he understand that the real problem is that there's absolutely no trust in Moldavian judicial system within the country, that the image of courts is terrible among ordinary Moldovan people?

3. Does President Voronin understand that the problem of incompetent and corrupt judges is not a separate problem of judicial system but is a problem of our whole ill society? The problems that exist in our courts are the same as in all other public administration bodies. And these problems are a consequence of the way the country is governed...

4. And finally, does the President understand that it is illegal to "punish" judges for the quality of judgements they adopt (I'm not saying here about the facts of corruption among judges who must be called to responsibility, that's a completely different story...). Let me remind art. 6 of the Constitution of Moldova that establishes separation of powers and art. 116 para. 1 stipulating that judges are INDEPENDENT, and the only person responsible for the existence of incompetent judges in Moldavian judicial system is THE PRESIDENT, who appoints them under art. 166 para. 2 of the Constitution.

The President must understand that what he proposes is the violation of the Constitution that stands even ABOVE HIM...

Full post as published by LAW IN MOLDOVA on February 13, 2007 (boomark / email).