The Superior Council of Prosecutors on Friday will examine the files submitted by the candidates for the position of prosecutor general. The issue is on the agenda of the CSP’s meeting that was set to start at 09:00 a.m., IPN reports.
Under the regulations, the CSP will examine the files of the four candidates in a closed session. The candidates are the interim prosecutor general Ion Munteanu, deputy chief prosecutor of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office Octavian Yakimovski, prosecutor Alexandru Cernei and former university lecturer Grigore Vornicescu.
The Council will agree the list of candidates who meet the conditions for participation in the competition and will fix the date, time and place of the interview. If the candidate doesn’t meet the conditions for participation in the contest, he/she is excluded from the competition by the reasoned decision of the SPC.
The appointment of the prosecutor general is one of the issues that is to be dealt with for the Republic of Moldova to start negotiations for accession to the European Union. The negotiations are expected to start at the end of June. After the eighth meeting of the EU-Republic of Moldova Association Council held on May 21 in Brussels, European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi said that there is at least one more topic that needs to be addressed and has not yet been resolved. The official referred to the justice sector reform, including the appointment of the prosecutor general, “for the justice system to be independent, impartial, professional, accountable and especially reliable”.
Prosecutor general Alexandru Stoianoglo was suspended from office at the beginning of October 2021 and was dismissed at the end of September 2023. The presidential decree on the dismissal was based on the SCP’s decision of May 2022 saying that the prosecutor general’s work was unsatisfactory. The post was held on an interim basis by Dumitru Robu and then by Ion Munteanu.
The SCP, including in the previous composition, made attempts to select the head of the Prosecutor General’s Office, but failed. The last time, on February 28, the Superior Council of Prosecutors decided to end the contest after SCP member Olesea Vârlan gave a very low score to one of the candidates for prosecutor general. The given SCP member tendered her resignation.
