Presidency of the Republic of Moldova
Yesterday, Parliament adopted Law No. 333 on increasing transparency in the administration of the judiciary and the Prosecutor’s Office, and on strengthening the integrity of judges who examine corruption cases.
I have seen several reactions to this initiative and I would like to present my own view, especially in the context of the latest developments in the justice system. In recent years, we have made significant efforts to clean up and reform the judiciary and to ensure more effective conditions for combating corruption.
I believe we can say that in some areas of the justice system things have started to work better and have improved, including thanks to the fact that some judges and prosecutors are carrying out their duties honestly, in accordance with the law, and are not evading responsibility.
Unfortunately, however, there are still areas of the system where actors within the judiciary continue to collaborate with criminals and strive to preserve elements of the old, corrupt system.
It is enough to look at the length of proceedings, especially in high-profile cases. I would like to mention just a few examples from publicly available information: one case involving an organised criminal group has been pending before the courts for 11 years, with only four years remaining until the statute of limitations expires, as happened in the Laundromat case; another case involving an organised criminal group accused of drug trafficking has been in court for seven years; another case concerning the embezzlement of another person’s assets has been pending for 11 years; and yet another similar case has been in court for nine years.
Cases related to bank fraud and money laundering show the same pattern. One case concerning the fraud at Banca de Economii has been examined by the courts since 2013; other bank fraud cases date back to 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. In one case, only three witnesses were heard over the course of three years. In another, only five witnesses were heard in five years. You may draw your own conclusions. In my view, however, these examples clearly prove that some judges deliberately allow delays in examining cases, and we may assume that this is being done in order to obtain illegal benefits.
What happens with these cases? Who sanctions such behaviour? I have not seen firm reactions from the self-governing bodies. The Superior Council of Magistracy should have taken a much stronger stance in these situations.
When we started the clean-up of the system, we hoped that conducting extraordinary evaluations in the key justice institutions would later be complemented by ordinary evaluations. We now see that this is not happening to a sufficient extent. Schemes of sabotage and corruption within the justice system have not disappeared.
We are receiving increasingly worrying signals about sabotage and the evasion by some first-instance judges from examining cases that are important for the country, relying on the assumption that they will not be subject to vetting, meaning extraordinary external evaluation.
Because of the irresponsibility of certain actors within the justice system, there are major risks that some elements of the bank fraud cases will never reach a conclusion.
We cannot stay on the sidelines in the face of these abuses. We must move forward with firm measures to ensure an honest and efficient justice system, and that the fight against corruption produces real results.
That is why I believe the legislative initiative adopted by Parliament yesterday is appropriate. Through this initiative, Parliament proposed including certain first-instance judges in the extraordinary evaluation process—namely, those who, since 2017, have examined or are examining corruption cases and related offences.
I believe we must go even further, especially since the European Commission’s 2025 Enlargement Report also recommends amending the legislation to provide for mandatory external evaluation of all judges specialised in anti-corruption, including those from specialised first-instance panels, by the relevant external evaluation commission. In this regard, I call on Parliament, the Ministry of Justice, the Superior Council of Magistracy, and other responsible authorities to analyse, within a working group, and urgently initiate measures aimed at:
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reviewing the vetting mechanism in order to expand the categories of judges subject to extraordinary evaluation; and/or
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accelerating the internal procedures of the relevant board within the Superior Council of Magistracy for assessing judges’ performance.
Judicial reform is extremely important both for the functioning of the state and for our process of accession to the European Union. If the measures taken so far prove insufficient, we must move forward, correct, accelerate, and deepen this reform. And that is exactly what we will do.
There is one more issue I would like to address—an issue that has been closely followed and widely discussed in society in recent days: the fact that individuals awaiting sentencing leave the territory controlled by the constitutional authorities before a verdict is delivered. The Transnistrian region is increasingly being used to evade the serving of sentences. Procedures for declaring convicted persons wanted are ineffective, as they involve timeframes that endanger the possibility of locating the individual; as a result, the opportunity to bring that person to justice and ensure accountability is lost.
In this context, I call on the Government to improve the existing framework and to adopt the necessary legislative measures to prevent convicted persons from evading the execution of sentences, including by simplifying the procedure for declaring a person wanted immediately upon the pronouncement of the sentence and the issuance of an arrest warrant for the purpose of executing that sentence.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of the honest people in the system—judges and prosecutors who perform their work responsibly, despite pressure from corrupt groups. However, it is essential that all judges and all prosecutors have a proper conduct in all institutions and at all levels. That is why reforms will continue.
