IPRE and CRJM recommends suspending the current contest organized by the Legal Standing Committee to appoint 4 members of the Supreme Council of Magistrates and proposes a non-political mechanism for the pre-selection of the candidates

IPRE and CRJM experts presented an Opinion on the selection process for the appointment of 4 members of the Supreme Council of Magistrates from the side of law professors, which was submitted today to the Secretariat of the Legal Standing Committee and Ministry of Justice

The opinion is based on the amendments made to the Law no. 947/1996 on the Supreme Council of Magistrates (SCM) via Law no. 193/2019, which entered into force on the 31^st of January 2020 and the Opinion of the Venice Commission no. 976/2019, published on the 22^nd of January 2020.

It recommends suspending the current contest organized by the Legal Standing Committee of the Parliament and proposes a mechanism of pre-selection of the candidates by a non-political Committee. The proposed mechanism also implies the discretion of the pre-selection Committee to approve its own rules of procedures on the basis of criteria established by law and propose to the Legal Standing Committee a short list of 6 candidates, from which the Legal Standing Committee will select the candidates (i.e. four candidates) and propose them to the Parliament to be voted. It is best recommended that this mechanism is included by amendments to the Law no. 947/1996 on the Superior Council of Magistracy.

The opinion was prepared in the framework of the project „Support to the development and implementation of justice policies in the Republic of Moldova”, implemented by IPRE in partnership with CRJM, with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union”.