Activity of the Parliament on April 28 – May 18, 2003

May 5–9, 2003

On 9 May 2003 the Republic of Moldova celebrated the Day of Victory and Commemoration of the victims of fascism. The entire last week saw a number of events at which the WW2 Veterans were given homage and expressed gratitude in a variety of forms: at concerts, cultural events, premiers, financial assistance and gifts. On this occasion, the Government decided to grant one off allowances worth 100 MDL to the veterans, and the Parliament adopted the Law on Veterans. Also, the Parliament adopted a series of other important laws, and we will refer to some of them in greater detail below.

Law on Veterans

Over the past years the Parliament has examined several draft laws on veterans, all of which had more of a populist character and lacked financial feasibility. In consequence, the drafts did not receive green light from the Government and did not get adopted by the Parliament. The last draft law was developed by the Government and its application was possible as the funds involved had been previously provided for in the budget reserves. The draft divides the veterans into several categories:

War veterans

Individuals who took part in WW2, military actions on the soil of other states, military actions for the defence of the territorial integrity of Moldova, as well as those who served in the active army forces or in the army or worked behind the front lines and were given awards and medals of the ex-USSR for good work and impeccable service during the WW2.

It is to be noted that this category also includes the veterans of the Romanian army who took part in the WW2, both until 1944, and after Romania left the fascist coalition. This legal solution should end discussions on this issue and the political implications thereof, and should thus conciliate all those who during the WW2 did their duty according to the official policy of the state at that historic time.

Labour Veterans

Individuals who have worked for more than 40 years and have been given excellence in labour awards and medals of the ex-USSR or Moldova.

Several deputies advocated the idea that labour veterans be considered all individuals who have worked for more than 40 years, regardless of whether they have been given awards or not. If this idea were to be accepted, the law would have lost its point and lacked the funds to satisfy more than 500,000 such individuals.

Veterans of Military Service

Military of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Moldova and the former USSR awarded medals, awards or honorary titles, and who have served for more than 20 calendar years.

Veterans of internal affairs bodies

The law provides for a series of facilities and benefits for a number of categories of veterans, most of which are to be funded from local budgets (in particular the benefits related to the free use of public transport and reductions in payments for services).

Additionally, the law includes provisions stipulating for monthly allowances for the veterans who have been awarded medals, awards and honorary titles (of the ex-USSR and Moldova). Thus, every individual qualified to this category will receive a monthly increment of 25 MDL (for those holding honorary titles) or 50 MDL (for award and medal holders).

This law was adopted in its final reading on 8 May, on the eve of the Victory Day. This, along with the allocation of the 100 allowance, have been used supposedly by the authorities as a propaganda tool. In this sense, we would like to remind that on 3 May 2001, the Parliament adopted the Law on Additional Social Protection Measures for WW2 Veterans, whereby the latter were to be added 200 and 400 MDL to their monthly pensions.

Law on the Reorganisation of the System of Courts

This law was intended to apply the constitutional norms on the reorganisation of the courts system and modify and complete other existing laws: the Law on the Status of Judges, the Law on the Supreme Court of Justice, the Law on the Superior Council of Magistrates, the Law on the Qualification College and Licensing of Judges, Law on the System of Economic and Military Courts etc.According to the provisions adopted by the Parliament, the reorganised courts system will start functioning on 12 June 2003, and by 1 June 2003 the Superior Council of Magistrates is to submit proposals to Parliament and President on which judges to be promoted to superior bodies and which ones to be dismissed.

It is to be reminded that the opposition has already warned that under the pretext of the proposed reform, the current government will undertake a second wave of cleansing the personnel in the judiciary, whereby some “uncomfortable” individuals will be either downgraded or even fired.

Law on the Ratification of the CIS Convention on International Transports of Passengers and Luggage

The Convention regulates the conditions and rules of passenger and luggage transports, the ways of formulating and examining the complaints related to such transports and the methods of organisation and control of transports of passengers and luggage by vehicles (buses).

The Conventions includes detailed provisions on the rights and obligations of travellers and drivers, and defines the general notions used in the field of international passenger transports.

Law on the Ratification of the Free Trade Agreement between the Republic of Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina

The agreement covers the free trade in industrial and agricultural goods, as well as:

the gradual abolishment of import customs taxes;
the moratorium on the introduction of new export taxes;
the elimination of technical barriers to trade;
safeguards and security measures etc.

Law on the Amendment and Completion of the Law on the Court of Accounts

The draft of this law was prepared by the President of the Republic of Moldova, who regarded as inopportune a series of provisions whereby additional powers were attributed to the Court of Accounts. In particular, the objections of the President envisaged the need to exclude the following provisions:

on the control of the commercial banks involved in serving the public budget;
on the control of the activity of the central and local public administration authorities with regard to the efficiency of using public resources;
on the operative control and the free choice of the types of control that the Court of Accounts can do;
on the execution by the Court of Accounts of in situ controls etc.

The deputies adopted integrally the objections of the President, although when the draft was initially adopted, the parliamentary majority fought harshly the arguments of the opposition, who saw a series of provisions unconstitutional and likely to be rejected by the head of state.

May 12–16, 2003

Early this week the OSCE organised a seminar of the issue of federalisation addressed to authorities from Chisinau and Tiraspol. The seminar was to contribute towards the efforts of drafting a new Constitution of the Republic of Moldova. The works of the seminar were held in Chisinau and Tiraspol and were appreciated by most of the participants as a thaw in the negotiation process. Yet, immediately after the conclusion of the seminar, the representatives of Transdnistria to the Constitutional Commission reverted to their old tactics of accusing Chisinau of having refused to co-operate in preparing the draft of the new Constitution. In this sense, it was interesting to observe that the official position of the Ministry of Re-integration added some new elements to it: the current format of talks with the participation of guarantors and the OSCE may not be used to organise the activity of the constitution drafting commission. The latter needs to function outside political talks and focus on the judicial mechanism that is to be incorporated into the supreme law.

On 15 May 2003 the last plenary session of the Parliament before the general local elections took place. A number of legislative acts of special importance have been discussed and adopted at the session.

Law on Lease in Agriculture

The law is intended to establish the normative framework for fostering leasing activities in agriculture, determine the objects and subjects of relations in agriculture as well as relevant rights and obligations.

The notion “lease in agriculture” is defined as “possession and use on a contractual basis, against a fee and for an undetermined period, of land lots and other agricultural goods”.

In the category “agricultural goods” are included “the unfixed means, agricultural fields, machines, equipment, installations, constructions, platforms and warehouses”. It is worth mentioning that this category does not include any more the water pools, which fact will make it impossible in the future to lease lakes and other water accumulation sites by the public administration authorities. Thus, after the terms of earlier contracts of lease of water pools expire, these will only be assigned to use, the right of owning them being excluded from the scope of such accords.

The law provides for compulsory conclusion of written lease contracts, as well as the following bounding terms: — the parties to the contract and their identification data, a detailed description of the object of the contract, the term of lease, the fee for the lease (form, term, place of payment), the rights and obligations of parties, their responsibility; the characteristics of the field, the options of its use and the norms of exploitation, conditions of protection and repeated cultivation etc. Sample lease contracts of lease of agricultural goods will be approved by the Government.

The maximum term of lease has been established at 30 years, although the current law provides for a maximum term of 99 years. As a consequence, in future there might appear conflicts among the subjects who have concluded contracts for the mentioned term and those who will have to revise their contracts and adjust them to the new law.

The law also establishes the ways of concluding contracts of sub-lease of agricultural fields as well as the methods of buying back the leased goods.

The issue of lease in agriculture has been the subject of long and controversial debates, especially in the context of revising the Land Code and “consolidating the agricultural fields”, which are said to be aimed at restoring the collective ownership of land and which have failed due to the intervention of the international financial institutions, but also due to the lack of necessary funds in the state budget. According to independent experts, although the law was long expected and promoted, it will not manage to solve most of the current problems, since their root cause lies not in the lack of administrative resources, but rather in the lack of investments, financial resources, fixed and unfixed assets, as well as the inability of the state policy to revive the production process and promote the export of agricultural products.

In addition to these, there is the categorical opposition of those who used to lease agricultural goods under advantageous terms and even illegally and who will now have to undergo changes and take actions of which they do not approve.

Law on the Modification and Completion of some Legislative Acts related to the Activity of the Centre for Fighting Economic Crime and Corruption

This law was adopted after long and heated debates. It conferred the Centre a number of additional prerogatives, which are to significantly enhance its position in the system of the Moldovan law enforcement bodies. The adopted changes refer to the following:

Granting the Centre powers of fiscal administration, including granting the employees of the Centre powers of fiscal officers, which will allow them to calculate and forcefully collect due taxes, as established in the fiscal legislation.
Granting the Centre powers of fighting money laundering, for which purpose a special sub-division will be set up to substitute the current specialised institution under the general prosecutor’s office. The subdivision will deal with the accumulation and preliminary examination of statements that all financial institutions are obliged to make in the event of transactions worth more than the minimum 100,000 (wired-200,000) Moldovan Lei (in the event of physical persons) and 300,000 MDL (in the event of legal persons).
Granting the Centre the power of undertaking criminal expertise and other expertise, as well as research falling in its competence.
Establishing additional regulations related to the remuneration of Centre employees. Thus, their monthly wage will include the wage for the position, the wage for the special grade, the increment to the wage for the length of service, for work in special circumstances and “other payments, increments and recompenses established by laws”. Apart from this, the employees of the Centre have the right to food rations and equipment, and since these are difficult to secure, they will be given a financial allowance.

Although the quantum of paying the employees has not been officially announced, it is so high that many other public employees are envious of it, as even the monthly remuneration of some technical officers is higher than that of ministers, and, according to some sources, the monthly wage of the leadership of the Centre is considerably higher than that of the Prime Minister and the President of the Parliament.

The debates on this issue are also fuelled by the fact that the activity of the Centre has yielded pretty modest results so far, and the competence of many employees is being questioned, which fact was mentioned even during the discussion of the draft. Nonetheless, the fact that the idea of creating the Centre belongs to the head of state and that the proposed amendments have enjoyed his preliminary approval has yielded the right result — the parliamentary majority adopted the law in the final reading.

Law on Exemption from Taxes on Mandates for Receiving the Indexed Deposits with the Bank of Savings

This law has abolished the state tax on the issue of mandates for receiving the indexed deposits with the Bank of Savings. Given that most of the people who have the right to receive their deposits are not physically able to get the necessary papers, it has been decided that they can mandate at local public administration offices, free of charge, other people to get the necessary papers and receive the deposited money.

The Parliament accepted these proposals, although there is a slight likelihood of abuses, and cases of swindle and forceful obtaining of such mandates have already been registered. Also, there are cases when certain people offer their services for a share of the money to be cashed.

In these circumstances, we believe that it would have been much fairer and more secure if the mechanism of cashing in the deposits had been the last stage which could have been performed only by the deponent or by his/her closest relatives.

Law on Amending the Law on the Budget of Social Insurance with Regard to Taxes on Lawyers

The law on the social insurance budget of 2003 bound the licensed lawyers, regardless of the juridical form of organisation, to pay into the budget of social insurance “a monthly tax calculated from the 29% tariff on three minimal wages” (approximately 700 Moldovan Lei per month). The lawyer community vehemently protested against this norm, arguing that they are being discriminated compared with other categories of insured professionals and that this norm is not provided for based on the fact that money is being accumulated. Practically, it provided that every lawyer was to pay over 700 Moldovan Lei into the budget every month, even if he/she had not accumulated the respective sum for the provided services.

According to the amendments made by the Parliament, the lawyers will have to pay a monthly tax of 10% when they make a profit below three average salaries (around 2,500 MDL). When their profit is higher than three average salaries, the lawyers will pay a monthly tax worth 29% as calculated from three salaries (around 700 MDL).

At the same time, it has been established that, depending on the contributions made, the lawyers will have the right to differentiated social services and insurance.

Law for the Amendment of the Law on Civil Aviation

According to the proposed amendments, a more precise definition has been given to terms like “air operator”, “international airport”, “air operator authorisation” etc.

Also, the law includes new language in the provisions on certification and authorisation of air operators, as well as on the authorisation of flights.

The law also provides for the introduction of a new article, which enumerates around 10 actions classified as civil aviation offences.

Notably, the amendments refer directly to the issues related to the activity of the joint air company “Air Moldova” in 2002. That conflict resulted in the exclusion from the company of the foreign partner and the withdrawal of the company’s authorisation to carry out flights on the air route Chisinau-Frankfurt. The scandal resulted in the setting up of the State Company “Air Moldova”, but also in depriving the passengers flying from Chisinau of the possibility to fly directly to Frankfurt, which is in the heart of Europe and offers immense possibilities of air connections to most of European destinations.

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