Alegerile parlamentare din 2021 în Republica Moldova - alegeri.md
 Monitoring→Public Institutions→President

Activity of the President on July 30 – August 30, 2005

|print version|mail| e-journal #56 |

Decrees

On August 5 President Voronin signed the Decree No. 196-IV on Establishing a national Commission Entrusted to Draft and Implement the Individual Action Plan RM — NATO. The Decree also appointed members of the Commission. Under the Decree the Commission is entrusted to: a) develop by March 1, 2006 the Individual Action Plan RM — NATO and submit it for the examination of the Supreme Security Council; b) ensure the implementation of RM — NATO Action Plan; c) brief Supreme Security Council on the Action Plan implementation.

The Decree is a follow up to the President’s initiative of June 7, 2005 to sign an Individual Action Plan RM — NATO. During his meeting in Brussels with NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, President Voronin stated “Republic of Moldova wishes to fully exploit the partnership opportunities provided by the Partnership for Peace and boost relations with NATO. We believe it is paramount to develop in this context the goals of National Army reform and actions aimed to improve our army capacity to operate along NATO forces. Moldovan authorities believe the time has come when in order to enhance the political dialogue and cooperation, an Individual Action Plan RM — NATO is to be developed”.

Initiatives

President Voronin convened a meeting to talk Republic of Moldova representative at the European Court for Human Rights. The move came as a follow up to the January 29, 2005 reunion of the judges. At the meeting President Voronin pointed the following: a) the current situation when more and more citizens of the country are dissatisfied with how the justice is done and appeal to ECHR is unacceptable; b) ECHR already passed 17 judgments condemning RM, while other 217 cases have been accepted by the Court; c) it is paramount to urgently amend the Constitution and “enforce national mechanism of human rights protection” by means of the Constitutional Court which is to become a kind of mini-ECHR, thereby Moldovan citizens would have to appeal ECHR in Strasbourg; d) in each of the cases ECHR issued a judgment condemning Moldova, Constitutional Court should take action against the judges whose ruling were contested by ECHR. Moreover, Prosecutor General should investigate those cases, claiming partial or complete recovery of the financial loses the country incurred as a result of the bad judgments; e) Parliament, Government and other specialized institutions should develop an action plan to implement the aforesaid propositions made by the President.

On the other hand, experts from the “Lawyers for the Human Rights” Association stated earlier during the Leadership School held by ADEPT that “that the most frequent violations of the human rights reported by citizens of the country are: a) non-execution of the court rulings; b) certain binding principles are neglected in ensuring free trials; c) the right on property is violated; d) violation of the right on freedom and security; d) also numerous are the appeals against illegal and abusive arrests, 95% of all mandates of arrest fail the scrutiny of ECHR, that is, they are illegal”.

Moreover, Lawyers for the Human Rights believe that the increasing number of judgments against Moldova are the result of: a) lack of independence of the judiciary in Moldova; b) corruption in judiciary, which is brought among others by the meager salaries of the judges, lack of adequate premises to do the justice properly, etc. As for granting Constitutional Court the status of “mini-ECHR”, there are different opinions in this respect. Theoretically, speaking the proposition seems quite acceptable. However, practically speaking it seems to raise numerous barriers and discourage citizens’ access to ECHR. The thing is that the incumbent membership of the Constitutional Court is seen as being extremely loyal to the governors to the expense of its impartiality. An illustration in this respect was the Court refusal to examine a number of appeals citing provisions of the Code of Constitutional Law. The latest example was the appeal submitted to the Court on the constitutionality of Parliament Resolution no. 444-XV of December 24, 2004 on establishing the election date. Previous compositions of the Court did examine such appeals ruling that decisions of the Parliament, Presidency, and Government enter in force after being published in the Official Monitor. However, the incumbent Court refrained from examining the appeal citing incorrect address formula and application procedure, despite the fact that it was developed by a former judge of the Court known for his high professionalism.

Speeches

On Independence Day, August 27 President Voronin delivered a speech. The gist of the speech referred to: a) Moldovan state managed to affirm itself despite domestic and foreign challenges; b) there is a consensus in the society on the future of the country, regardless of nationality or spoken language, therefore the state is no longer an abstract notion, but rather a home for a multinational people; c) independence would be fully-fledged only when democratic institutions would function, as would rule of law, market economy and European values, inadmissibility of any pressure on mass-media and civil society, opinions equally shared by power and opposition; d) European accession is a provides an unique opportunity to build the Moldovan state; e) RM reunification has become inevitable after the adoption by Moldovan parliament on July 22 of the Law on the future organization of the country.

Interestingly enough, President Voronin speech delivered this year stands out against his previous speeches delivered on Independence Day. Albeit he reiterated the main political tasks part of the “national consensus”, still this time they paltry. This specifically refers to RM’s strategic goal — accession to EU. He highlighted the need to comply with Copenhagen criteria and named accession the “national idea” in the RM.

This might be explained by the internal and external political context. On the one hand, the problems EU is facing diminish even further the meager chances Moldova had to join the structure. On the other hand, Russia’s economic growth, boosted by rising oil prices, strengthens even further its position in the region and increases CIS dependence on it. Russia’s message regarding “turning into monetary terms” the economic ties with CIS depending on their loyalty, bears considerable risks for Moldova, which has already suffered from the Russia’s ban of agricultural products imports from Moldova.

By passing the “historic law” on the principles of settling Transdnistrian conflict, RM has sharply limited its berth for maneuvers in settling the conflict. In fact, the conflict resolution depends on some external factors outside RM’s control, namely Ukraine and Russia.

All the aforesaid factors might raise some significant problems for the incumbent governing, strengthening the positions of the pro-Russian wing in the ruling party. As for the rest, all the President did was to review RM’s achievements since he launched his project “Sovereign Moldova” on August 27, 2001, namely: 1) settling Transnistrian conflict and reintegrating the country, 2) edifying a multiethnic and multi-linguistic Moldovan nation; 3) strengthening democracy, consolidating civil society and specifically, judiciary; 4) promoting a multi-dimensional foreign policy. Indeed many of the tasks set back in 2001 have been significantly changed in 2005.

July 4–29, 2005 September 13–26, 2005