No headway was made with justice reform in first half of 2011, experts

No accomplishment was done in the first half of this year in the reform of the legal system, which is described in the Government’s program “European Integration: Freedom, Democracy, Welfare”, Corneliu Gurin, expert of the Association for Participative Democracy (ADEPT), said in a news conference where there was presented a new number of the publication “Euromonitor”, Info-Prim Neo reports. The ADEPT expert said the progress made in the justice reform and the related areas is insignificant and is seen only at the level of ad-hoc approaches and in legislative and normative documents that have not yet been adopted. “The promotion of the reform of the legal system is delayed owing to the disagreements existing inside the ruling alliance,” said Corneliu Gurin. He also said that every component of the Alliance for European Integration has its own view on the reform of the legal system and this hinders the reformation process. Therefore, they did not manage yet to work out a clear reformation strategy. The implementation of important documents concerning the legal system is also delayed even if no significant effort is needed to carry them out. Corneliu Gurin stated that the most serious problems in the legal system remain the promotion of political interests in the judicial system, the long term during witch the legal cases are examined, the legality of the adopted decisions, transparency in doing justice, the quality of the procedural materials. Corneliu Gurin said the decree signed by Acting President Marian Lupu to create a national council that will monitor the working groups involved in the reform of the legal system was long expected. The experts tried to set up such a council half a year ago. The experts recommend that the reform of justice should be promoted on the basis of a complex strategy that would contain objective and pragmatic assessments, impact analyses and methods of achieving the set objectives, the implementation mechanisms, etc. Another recommendation is that the planned measures should be unconditionally supported by allocating the necessary financial, human and technical resources. ADEPT executive director Igor Botan said the creation of the national council by presidential decree, without holding consultations within the ruling alliance first, shows that there are disagreements between Marian Lupu and Prime Minister Vlad Filat. He considers that a wrong path is followed. “There is no cohesion as regards the implementation of certain reforms within the Alliance for European Integration and this is to Moldova’s disadvantage,” said Igor Botan. The sixth edition of the publication “Euromonitor”- number 10(19) - is devised by experts of ADEPT and the Independent Analytical Center “Expert-Grup”, with financial support from Soros Foundation Moldova.