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Activity of the Parliament on February 17 – March 4, 2007

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Appointments

Dumitru Pulber and Elena Safaleru have been appointed judges of the Constitutional Court for a new 6-year term. The two judges have been sworn in together with Victor Puscas (who was appointed by the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) for a new mandate) and Valeria Stirbet (appointed by SCM). Two judges appointed by Moldovan president in 2002 and 2004 kept their offices. Mircea Iuga is the only member of the previous composition of the Constitutional Court who was not appointed this time. Judges of the Constitutional Court have chosen Dumitru Pulber as chairperson. Valeria Stirbet was relieved from the post of chairwoman of the Supreme Court of Justice, as she was elected judge of the Constitutional Court, and this post became vacant.

Svetlana Caitaz was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of Justice. The major faction did not support the other two candidates proposed by SCM (N.Budai and E.Zinenco) and opposition representatives reiterated statements that the parliamentary majority appreciates the candidates under political aspect inclusively and the status and competence of SCM are affected. The Christian Democratic faction did not raise objections at the February 22 sitting, though it has earlier warned that these attempts and attitudes of the majority affect the parliamentary political consensus.

The Parliament has voted several decisions on appointments in the Prosecutor-General’s Office:

Legal acts

Law on prevention and combat of domestic violence. The document derives from national plan on respect for human rights and Moldova’s commitments toward community institutions. The law aims to protect and consolidate family, respect basic principles of legislation on family and strengthen the mechanism of ensuring equal chances to women and men in exercising their human rights. It chooses the legal and organisational bases of prevention and combat of domestic violence, established by authorities in charge with preventing and combating domestic violence, establishes the procedure of signalling and settling cases.

Law approving the regulation on military discipline. The action of the regulation will extend on military serving in the National Army, Border Guard Troops and Carabineer Troops.

Law on modification of the law on ecological agro-food production. Single Article 8 (2) and Article 12 (2), under paragraph 5 of Law 115-XVI from June 9, 2005 concerning ecological agro-food production (Monitorul Oficial of Moldova, 2005, issue 95–97, Art.446) are excluded.

Law on modification and completion of the Execution Code. It introduces regulations on execution of arrest and contraventional arrest. However, the law does not stipulate the transmission of preventive detention facilities from administration of the Interior Ministry to the Justice Ministry, accordingly to international regulations and recommendations.

Law on modification and completion of some legal acts (welfare of magistrates). The document approved by Parliament was not promulgated by chief of state and was delivered for re-examination. The chief of state raised objections against change of financing source for pensions of judges and prosecutors (payment from state budget, not from collections to the state welfare budget be maintained by 2010), and maintenance of the present pension calculation mechanism for cases when documents confirming the size of salary have not been preserved. Parliamentarians accepted the objections and adopted the law with amendments by chief of state.

Law on abrogation of the law on property. The 1991 law is out-of-date, it does not correspond to present regulations and it is not applied since enforcement of the new Civil Code, which minutely regulates aspects on property.

Law on modification of the annex to the law approving the list of units whose farm fields are owned by state. The law stipulates the granting from state property of 7.7 hectares to the Singera mayoralty, which will be distributed to 17 owners who did not accept compensations for fields expropriated to build the railway portion Revaca-Cainari[1].

Laws on ratification of some international acts:

Law on modification of Title III of Tax Code. The completion establishes that the subject who must not comply with requirements on registration as VAT payer may voluntarily get registered as such taxpayer, if it delivered goods, provided services worth 100,000 lei in 12 months in a row, except for VAT-free deliveries.

Decision approving the list of public communal services in the commune of Pelinia, the district of Drochia, proposed for concession and mandatory clauses of concession contract. The document is approved accordingly to the law on concession, with granted services including water, heating providing services, sewerage services, used water cleaning services, sanitation services, greening services and local public carriage services being part of granted services. The document is enounced as a first experience of building a public-private partnership in this field, and a special contest will be organised to implement this project and the results of the experiment will be taken into consideration to work out and implement a new regulatory framework in the area.

Draft law on public acquisitions. The law is proposed to be applied on contracts of public acquisitions whose estimated value without VAT is equal or higher than 20,000 lei (for contracts on public acquisitions of goods); 25,000 lei (for contracts on pubic acquisitions of works or services); contracts on public acquisitions subsidised directly with more than 50 percent by contracting authorities. It also aims to regulate particularities of applying contracts of public acquisitions whose estimated value without VAT is equal or higher than 2,500,000 lei for contracts on public acquisitions of goods and services; 99,000,000 lei for contracts on public acquisitions of works.

Draft law on emergency bodies. The document was included in the 2005–09 Legislative Programme and it stipulates a legal framework, principles of activity, attributions, competence and responsibility of persons serving in emergency services, their status, place and role in state and society. Essential objections raised by parliamentary commissions and opposition lawmakers envisaged the subordination of competent department (to the Government directly, not to the Interior Ministry), but the specialised commission turned down the proposals, saying that the activity of this department and Interior Ministry “has a tangency”.

Draft laws on regenerating energy resources. The Parliament passed the following draft laws in the first reading:

Draft law on modification and completion of some legal acts. The document approved in the first reading seeks the modification of the Criminal Code and Code of Penal Procedure to regulate and sanction offences related to sale of children and infantile pornography, as well as introduction of some special norms on proceeding protection of victims and witnesses of such offences.

Draft law on conversion of debts of Stock Society Chisinau Enterprise of Crop Products into shares. The draft adopted in the first reading stipulates the conversion of old debts in the amount of 6,976,149 lei toward state budget and 54,684,600 lei toward the Finance Ministry for credits offered from foreign sources into state shares, accordingly to the situation on April 1, 2006, suspending the calculation of current payments (interests and penalties) starting April 1, 2006 till enforcement of the law. The converted old crediting debts will be converted into shares of additional issue and will be used to increase the registered capital of the Stock Society Chisinau Enterprise of Crop Products, which will be managed by state-owned enterprise Moldresurse.

Draft law on modification and completion of Article 2 of the law on additional social protection for war invalids, participants in the World War II and their families. It stipulates monthly allocations (worth between 100 and 400 lei) for persons incapable to work, who arrived from another region (Chernobyl) in 1986 and received the Moldovan citizenship, as well as to husbands who survived but are incapable to work, participants in WWII or battles in peaceful times among killed military or participants in cleanup of consequences of the Chernobyl disaster who died or war invalids who died.

Draft law on completion of the law on free economic zones. It introduces a new paragraph saying that the resident will place goods introduced formerly under customs regime of free zone under another customs regime accordingly to legislation in force, when a free zone (subzone) stops working or if the status of resident is revoked until a free zone (subzone) stops working.

Parliamentary control. Statements

Deputy minister of economy and commerce has reported the implementation of amendments to legislation on entrepreneur’s patent. The executive says that these reforms aim to introduce a modern and certified trade system, ensure protection of consumers and competition, enhance budgetary revenues and reduce possibilities of eluding the fiscal legislation.

A representative of the building and territorial development agency informed lawmakers about structure of prices for connection to gas pipes, saying that 45 percent of this price goes now to materials and 55 percent to manual labour (the agency seeks equality). The State Inspection has controlled the building sector and found out that price for connection to gas and water networks is too high. The Government has worked out a special methodology, so that the connection of a house to the gas network would cost maximum 3,000 lei. A representative of the executive avoided saying if the larger amounts paid by people to connect their homes to gas pipes will be repaid.

Chief of the inspectorate for supervision of spirits has informed lawmakers regarding resumption of wine exports to the Russian Federation. According to a report, competent authorities have taken some measures, had nine meetings with Russian experts, the Russian side has received an action plan on ensuring quality and safety of exported production. Russian experts have presented additional requirements, which do not essentially differentiate from technical and quality norms respected now and formerly by Moldova. Problems linked to exportation via “one-stop-shop” are not clarified completely, the Russian Federation lacks a clear policy and requirements on this field, the reason why a planned visit of Russian experts who should choose enterprises to restart exports was postponed till March. Opposition lawmakers recommended the executive to appeal to the international arbitrage to impose the Russian Federation to recover losses of Moldovan entrepreneurs.

The parliamentary majority turned down a proposal by Deputy Valentina Cusnir to create an investigative commission to clarify the situation in vine growing and winemaking sector and an initiative by Social Liberal lawmakers to create an investigative commission to administrate resources of the Parliament and to investigate the politicising of the legislature’s apparatus.

The Government has informed the Parliament about execution of legislation on compensations for victims of political repressions. It reported that the main problems are related to activity of local commissions, lack of material and financial resources for plenary execution of legislation in the field, lack of experience and low competence of local public administration authorities.

Questions and interpellations

Deputy Vitalia Pavlicenco has appealed to prime minister over use of licensed software in Moldova, number of computers held by state authorities and measures taken to prevent consequences in connection with expiration of moratorium introduced by big producers of certified software to improve protection of copyrights.

Democratic Deputy Valentina Buliga has sought information about organisation and conduct of baccalaureate examinations in 2007, under aspect of ensuring necessary financial and material resources (accommodation of students, secret carriage of acts, selection of observers, etc.).

Deputy Vladimir Braga has demanded explanations regarding Government’s strict restrictions on exportation of wine in bulk, warning that economic agents practicing such activities face grave difficulties.

Democratic Deputy Vladimir Filat has asked the Ministry of Finance to take measures in order to deduce losses produced by Russian restriction against Moldovan wines and to resolve the problem of not sanctioning exporters, who delivered wines to Russia and did not receive appropriate payments due to actions of Russian authorities, for non-repatriation of currency.

Statements

Deputy Vitalia Pavlicenco has delivered statements on visas for Moldovan citizens who travel to European countries and possibility of working in Romania. She criticised the stance of Moldovan governmental authorities who reject the participation of Romanian authorities in facilitating the administration of the joint E.U. visa issuance centre and signing a labour exchange agreement between Moldova and Romania. Another statement read by Pavlicenco in front of the Parliament criticises the actions taken by governmental authorities and representatives of parliamentary majority in relations with Romanian authorities and citizens.

The faction representing the Social Liberal Party has released a statement seeking the creation of a national commission to investigate events during the Dniester armed conflict.

The lawmaker representing the Party of Social Democracy, Dumitru Braghis, has read a statement condemning assaults of declared privatised media outlets on free press, libels and insults against cultural personalities of Moldova.

The Our Moldova Alliance faction has released statements concerning:

  1. ↑ The problem of fields in the town of Singera was recently raised in a press release by the Centre for the Struggle Against Economic Crimes and Corruption, which has filed a penal case against Singera mayor, suspected of extortion and fraudulent privatisation of fields estimated at about 120,000 dollars.
February 1–16, 2007 March 5–18, 2007