The authorities did not succeed to reset the national anti-corruption system. Moreover, the mechanisms become even more confusing by assigning the authorities of anticorruption (other than the NIA) the right to carry out additional checks on the declarations of assets and personal interests filed by their employees, Transparency International Moldova says in a monitoring report, IPN reports.
According to the report, the reform process of the NIA is slow, jeopardizing the potential effectiveness of controlling personal assets and interests in the public service. “No matter how much the authorities expect from applying professional integrity tests, the impact will not be credible if people with integrity problems are involved in the process. Also, delays in adopting and publishing the anti-corruption policy document indicate that the authorities do not succeed in becoming more effective in planning, which compromises the effectiveness of implementation,” says a press release issued by Transparency International Moldova.
The report authors note that the process of setting up the National Integrity Authority (NIA) by reorganizing the National Integrity Commission (NIC) did not go too far in January-September 2017. The reform is triggered by the lack of predictability, efficiency and timeliness of the Integrity Council (IC), which did not approve the Regulation on its organization and functioning. Many of its meetings were postponed due to lack of quorum. Likewise, in organizing the competition to fill the positions of the Chair and Vice-Chair of the NIA, the IC unduly prolongs the competition procedures. “Thus, more than one year after the adoption of the laws from the Integrity Package, their implementation did not go further than organizing the competition to fill the positions of Chair and Vice-Chair of the NIA, the procedures not yet being finalized,” said the monitoring authors, adding that similarly, due to the delays in the reorganization process, certain prescription terms may pass, particularly the terms of prescription terms for contravention liability.
The integrity law No. 82/2017 adopted on May 25, 2017 was published on July 7, 2017. Among the most controversial provisions of this law are those contained in Art. 13 par. (4). According to them, in order to ensure the professional integrity specific to the anticorruption authorities, the declarations of assets and personal interests of the public agents in these entities may be subject to additional verifications within the public entity they belong to, applying the consequences provided by the special legislation regulating the activity of the respective category of public agents.
“In this case, according to the cited rules, the consequences imposed cannot be less serious than the consequences imposed by the general rules. Obviously, through these rules, all anti-corruption authorities are attributed powers similar to those held by NIA. It is noteworthy that, for the purposes of Art. 3 of Law No. 82/2017, anticorruption authority, in addition to ANI, is the National Anticorruption Center, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, the Intelligence and Security Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). Besides, Law No. 82/2017 is not explicit as to the reasons why MIA is included in the list of anti-corruption authorities,” said the experts of Transparency International Moldova.
The Regulation on the selection and designation of judges specialized in judicial control on professional integrity testing was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Moldova on January 6, 2017. Subsequently, on February 28, 2017, the Superior Council of Magistracy appointed judges specialized in judicial control over professional integrity testing, including several magistrates with integrity issues, previously targeted in journalistic investigations. Obviously, this compromises the instrument, which has been challenged by several civil society organizations from the start.
