The Constitutional Court (CC), interpreting Article 34, par. (3) of the Constitution, decided that the restricting of the right to information can take place only when it is based on a real and justified goal of defending a legitimate interest to protect the people or national safety, while the public interest for finding out information  does not prevail. The Court pronounced on a challenge concerning the right to information of people, correlated with public documents that refer to public money, which was filed by Liberal MPs Mihai Ghimpu and Valeriu Munteanu, IPN reports.

The authors of the challenge disputed the necessity of making secret the Government decisions concerning the banks involved in the theft of billions of lei - Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala and Unibank. The Liberal lawmakers asked the Court to rule if the use of public money can be made secret.

The Court also decided that the restricting of access to information, including the categories of specific and limited information, which cannot be revealed for the purpose of protecting citizens and national safety, must be provided by a law and is needed in a democratic society for protecting a legitimate interest.

Also, the justification of the legitimate interest is based on the gravity of the damage caused to it, if particular information is published. The public authorities are to prove that the revealing of information would seriously affect the protection or citizens or national safety.

The CC will decide with discernment the cases of restriction of access to information by the acts of the Government, Parliament and the President of Moldova.