Ecaterina Mardarovici, who heads the National NGO Council, said the communication between the parliamentary commissions and the specialized NGOs in the process of appraising legislative initiatives is defective. She made such a statement in the sixth annual conference “Cooperation between Parliament and civil society” that was organized by Moldova’s Parliament and the National NGO Council with the support of the development partners, IPN reports.
“We came to this conference with many lessons learned. Cooperation between civil society and Parliament is based on decisional transparency, which is an obligation of the central and local public administration, and on the participatory right, which is a right of civil society, not an obligation. I hope we will manage to transform the obligation of the administration and the right of civil society into a necessity. It would be extraordinary if everyone feels the need to take part, while the state institutions will feel the need to ensure decisional transparency. This will have an impact on the quality of people’s lives,” stated Ecaterina Mardarovici.
Speaking about the weak ring in the cooperation between the parliamentary commissions and the specialized NGOs, Ecaterina Mardarovici said a program was worked out to improve this communication as the last legislative initiative concerning the Broadcasting Code, which caused controversy, showed that the communication is practically absent.
Head of Parliament Andrian Candu said he wants the conference’s title to include the sentence “Recognition and strengthening of the role of civil society in the democratic development of the country” because this role is very important. He noted that he found out how it is to work with civil society several years ago. Then, a number of young people proposed creating the Youth Parliament. This initiative led to the appearance of the Youth Law.
“I then understood how important the role of civil society is. I understood that not even the European integration process can be organized without the active participation of civil society. We are not the ideal partners of civil society but you should be critical and even harsh so that we listen to your suggestions and ideas. I consider the relationship between Parliament and civil society is now good, but this does not mean that there is no place for the better. There are yet problems related to the taking of decisions in a transparent way,” stated Andrian Candu.
Deputy Speaker Liliana Palihovici said the sixth annual conference involves a larger number of participants and voiced hope that the discussions will help improve cooperation between the administration and civil society. They will consider the possibility of civil society helping implement the Association Agreement with the EU and how the NGOs can become more active not only in Chisinau and in several towns, but also in other settlements so that the dialogue between the authorities and the people covers the whole country.
The conference began with the observance of a minute’s silence for those affected by the violence and torture used after the April 7-8, 2009 events.
