Members of the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) voted on the resignation of five judges, including Anatolie Minciună, interim president of the Chisinau Court of Appeal, at a meeting on Thursday 16 March.

Members of the SCM accepted the requests for resignation of the interim president of the Chisinau Court of Appeal, Anatolie Minciună, Judge Serghei Gubenco of the Comrat Court of Appeal, Judge Buhnici Virgiliu of the Chisinau Court of Appeal, Judge Constantin Cretu of the Hincesti Court and Judge Victor Potlog of the Cimislia Court.

Magistrate Anatolie Minciună was appointed interim president of the Chisinau Court of Appeal (CA) in March 2022 by the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM). Previously, Anatolie Minciună held the interim position of President of the Chisinau Court of Appeal.

Anatolie Minciună has been a judge since 1991. In 2008 he was promoted to the Chisinau Court of Appeal. He got the position thanks to members of the SCM, because he was rejected by President Voronin, who brought several serious accusations against him. According to the documents, investigations have established that his expenses and property do not match his declared income. In the same document, the then president wrote that Anatolie Minciună had acquitted the criminal authority David Mereșinschi, alias “Debil”, and members of his group, who were indicted for committing acts of blackmail. At the beginning of 2008, after a repeated request from the SCM, Voronin did not object and Anatolie Minciună ended up in the Chisinau Court of Appeal.

In 2015, Judge Anatolie Minciuna’s name appeared in a corruption case.

Judge Minciuna’s wealth

In the declaration of assets and interests filed in 2020, Anatolie Minciună declared that he collected a salary of 337 609 lei from the Chisinau Court of Appeal and 600 lei from the National Institute of Justice.

Also here, Minciună mentions that he owns several extravil and agricultural lands, a villa in Trușeni, mun. Chisinau, and an apartment of 71 sq.m., acquired in 2014, in the block built especially for judges, at a price of 360 euros for a square meter and two cars, a GAZ from 1981 and a Skoda Fabia manufactured in 2008.

The name of magistrate Sergei Gubenco was targeted in the “Laundromat” case

According to Decision No. 623/26 of 29 September 2016, the Superior Council of Magistracy gave its consent to the initiation of criminal proceedings against Judge Gubenco Serghei of the Comrat Court of Appeal.

According to the Decision No 608/25 of 20 September 2016, the Plenum of the Superior Council of Magistracy issued the consent to conduct criminal prosecution actions – detention, arrest and search of Judge Gubenco Serghei of the Comrat Court of Appeal, and decided to suspend him from the position of judge.

Serghei Gubenco was reinstated after the members of the Superior Council of Magistracy accepted the requests of five judges in the “Laundromat” case to be reinstated to the positions they held until September 2016, with payment of salaries for the period they were suspended.

How and why their reinstatement was possible

Sergei Gubenco and four other judges applied for reinstatement after anti-corruption prosecutors issued orders in September 2022 ordering the removal from prosecution of 13 former and current judges targeted in the “Laundromat” case on charges of complicity in money laundering, on the grounds that the act did not meet the elements of the crime. In one of these orders, the state prosecutor Mirandolina Suzizcaia motivated her decision to remove one of the judges from prosecution by the fact that the conclusion previously issued by the judge “has become irrevocable by non-appeal, i.e., so far there is no legal confirmation that the court order is contrary to the law,” the prosecutor noted. Similar arguments are found in the other orders issued by other prosecutors, whereby judges were removed from prosecution.

Serghei Gubenco and the four judges, along with other former magistrates who have since left the system, are also being tried in another criminal case, also opened in September 2016 and which has been pending for more than three years without a verdict in the Chisinau Court. In that case, they are accused of knowingly passing a sentence contrary to the law, also in the “Laundromat” case.