The Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) approved at its meeting on Thursday, February 23, the resignation of four more Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) judges.

Judge Dorel Musteață, interim president of the CSM, Judge Vladimir Timofti, interim president of the CSJ, and Judges Nicolae Craiu and Dumitru Mardari have submitted their resignation requests from their positions as judges of the supreme court.

The new departures come just over a week after the CSM approved the resignation requests of 16 judges from the CSJ.

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On Tuesday, 14 February 2023, the Superior Council of Magistracy accepted the resignation requests submitted by 16 judges of the Supreme Court of Justice. “Following the judges’ resignation, 5 judges in the Civil, Commercial and Administrative Disputes College and 3 judges in the Criminal College will effectively work at the Supreme Court of Justice, taking into account that one judge is seconded to the CSM,” the court warned in a press release.

Ala Cobăneanu, Svetlana Filincova, Iurie Diaconu, Victor Boico and Victor Burduh will leave the judiciary on 1 March 2023; Elena Cobzac – from 13 March 2023, and Nadejda Toma, Liliana Catan, Maria Ghervas, Galina Stratulat, Iurie Bejenaru and Ghenadie Plămădeală – from 31 March 2023. At the same time, the CSM accepted the resignation applications submitted by Victor Micu, Luiza Gafton and Petru Moraru, all three judges at the CSJ, seconded members of the CSM, who requested to be approved for resignation from 3 April 2023. The resignation request submitted by Anatolie Galben, another CSM member, a judge seconded from the Chisinau Court of Appeal (CA), was also accepted.

Thus, the panel of judges examining the criminal case of former President Igor Dodon at the CSJ has been left without two magistrates – Vladimir Timofti and Ghenadie Plămădeală.

Vladimir Timofti, acting president of the CSJ, has been a member of the judiciary since 1992. According to magistrat.md, he was appointed in 2002 as a judge until he reached the age limit. Subsequently, in 2003, he was appointed to the position of judge at the CSJ. In 2012, Timofti was conferred the higher grade of judge, and in 2014 he was awarded the Diploma of Honour of the Superior Council of Magistracy. In November 2019, Timofti was appointed to serve as interim President of the CSJ until the position is filled in the manner established by law.

Previously, ZdG wrote that Vladimir Timofti was part of the panel of judges at the CSJ that, on 12 February 2017, rejected as inadmissible the appeals filed by the parties in the case of former Prime Minister Vladimir Filat, previously tried for passive corruption and influence peddling. Timofti was also a member of the panel of judges that put an end to the case of controversial businessman Veaceslav Platon.

In February 2017, ZdG wrote about the magistrate’s house in the town of Codru.

Dorel Musteață has been a judge since 2005, when he was appointed to the Anenii Noi Court. In 2011 he became president of the court and in 2014 he became a member of the CSM. Shortly afterwards, he resigned as head of the court, and in September 2016, his colleagues in the CSM decided to appoint him, by transfer, to the Chisinau Court, starting 1 January 2017. Just a year and a half later, without ever having actually worked at the Chisinau Court, Dorel Musteață was nominated by the judges of this court to the position of member of the CSM. Musteață has been acting president of the CSM since June 2021, and has been a judge at the CSJ since November 2021.

Nicolae Craiu has been working at the CSJ since 2016 and Dumitru Mardari – since 2014.