Amendments to police legislation are part of 'inevitable reform'

Though painful, stripping the police workers of rent and ration allowances and increasing the default age at which they can retire are legislative measures that are in line with Moldova's efforts to homogenize its legislation with the European laws and also measures to reduce government spending on police, think experts. According to Mihail Lascu, the leader of the law enforcement trade union Demnitate, the recent amendments to the police legislation adopted by the Moldovan Parliament has prompted about 2,000 workers of the Interior Ministry to submit their resignations. “The modifications of the provisions related to the retirement age of the police, as well as of the military staff, are in line with the European laws, but this measures could also be determined by the economic crisis”, Viorel Cibotaru, director of the Public Policy Institute (PPI), has told Info-Prim Neo. “Our police are militarized and unreformed as measured by European standards. Political will has just started to emerge as to the development of a realistic concept for the reformation of the law enforcement bodies, still this is not yet the case of a comprehensive reform in the security sector”, thinks Viorel Cibotaru. “Over the last 20 years Moldova hadn't had a government which would really take on the mission of building a state based on the rule of law. Now as Moldova struggles with the effects of the economic crisis and, at the same time, is obliged to meet its European pro-reform commitments, our society has to pay the price of this feigned, 20-year-long process of building the rule of law”, said Oazu Nantoi, PPI program director. “The effectiveness of the state and of the Interior Ministry was seen on 7 April 2009, and now this is a challenge for the government to find a way to avoid serious disturbances of public order and move on with inevitable reforms”, said Oazu Nantoi.