The depersonalization of court decisions is performed defectively. A study of the transparency of justice versus personal data, carried out by the Legal Resources Center of Moldova, shows that the regulations concerning the depersonalization of court judgments is violated in the case of 63% of the civil, contravention and penal decisions and in the case of 55% of the judgments concerning acts of corruption, IPN reports.
Ilie Chirtoacă, legal adviser at the Legal Resources Center, said that there were analyzed 1,340 court judgments that were passed at country level between January 1, 2018 and March 31, 2019 and placed on the websites of courts of law. The Supreme Council of Magistracy adopted the regulations concerning the depersonalization of court judgments in October 2017 and these took effect on January 1, 2018. This way, on March 31, 2019, the regulations had been applied for 15 months. There were examined the way in which six major rules of this document were obeyed.
According to Ilie Chirtoacă, the findings show that particular public information is absent from over half of the analyzed court judgments. 20% of these show that the judgment was partially depersonalized, only the first several pages of the decision.
Most of the times, the provisions that refer to the obligation to hide the domicile address, date and place of birth, the identification number and registration number of the motor vehicle are not respected. Also, the names of culprits, authors or instigators are depersonalized abusively where they should not be. On the other hand, the names of the lawyer, prospectors or ascertaining agent are hidden abusively.
The study shows that in the case of judges, the average rate of violations of the depersonalization regulations is of 75%. At the level of appeals courts, the situation is better that at courts of law, but as worrisome as 47% of the court judgments do not comply with the regulations.
According to the Center’s legal adviser Ion Guzun, the incorrect method of depersonalizing court judgments affects the private life of private individuals involved in trials and undermines confidence in the judicial system, if particular public information is absent.
The study authors recommend the responsible authorities to take urgent measures to improve judges’ knowledge of the regulations concerning the depersonalization of court judgments.
The study was carried out in the framework of the project “Promoting rule of law in Moldova through civil society oversight” that is implemented by the Legal Resources Center with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
