IPRE’s Justice Expert’s Group presented an opinion on the draft law on “pre-vetting”

This opinion presents a set of key recommendations on the draft law on integrity evaluation of candidates for membership in the self-governing bodies of judges and prosecutors published by the Ministry of Justice on December 1, 2021.

Given the extraordinary situation in the justice sector of the Republic of Moldova, the authors of this opinion support this initiative, and provide a list of proposals regarding the independence and efficiency of the body that will carry out the extraordinary evaluation and other recommendations to improve the text of the draft law, referring in particular to:

• providing additional justification in the informative note accompanying the draft law on the implementation of the extraordinary mechanism;
• include a more detailed regulation of the deadlines for the evaluation, as well as a clarification of the how the evaluation process is included in the process of organizing elections for membership in the SCM, the SCP and their subordinate bodies,
• clarifying the procedure for dismissal of the members of the Evaluation Commission,
• establishing the obligation of the members of the Evaluation Commission to submit the declaration of assets and personal interests,
• express provision in the draft law of the law enforcement institutions to cooperate with the Evaluation Commission,
• providing sanctions for failure to provide information requested by the Evaluation Commission and for sabotaging its work, and
• other aspects that will increase the clarity of the text and the functionality of the proposed mechanism.

This opinion was prepared within IPRE project “Justice Expert’s Group”, implemented with the financial support of the Soros Foundation-Moldova.The content of the publication represents the opinion of the Justice Expert’s Group and does not necessarily reflect the position of the Soros Foundation Moldova.