“We see yet another attempt by the system to put a spanner in the works of justice reform and efforts to remove corrupt people from the system. These decisions confirm once again that the system does not want to clean itself from within and that our approach of external evaluation is correct,” says President Maia Sandu, referring to the 21 decisions of the Pre-Vetting Commission recently annulled by judges of the Supreme Court of Justice.

Maia Sandu, President of Moldova, answered several questions about justice reform in an interview with ZdG on Thursday 10 August.

“The almost indigo decisions of the SCJ to annul the decisions of the Commission for the external evaluation of the integrity of judges are illegal. We are seeing yet another attempt by the system to put the brakes on justice reform and efforts to remove corrupt people from the system. These decisions confirm once again that the system does not want to clean itself from within and that our approach of external evaluation is correct. This does not mean that there are no honest people in the system, but as far as we can see, very few of them are involved in this effort to clean up justice. This is not the first obstacle that corrupt judges have created and probably not the last. But despite these obstacles, reform is moving forward. The Extraordinary External Evaluation Commission will continue its work and remove judges and prosecutors who cannot prove their integrity from the system,” said President Sandu, referring to those court decisions.

“The crisis in justice will continue until we get the system in order. The fight we are fighting is a fight for survival. It is about our survival as a democratic state with a future in the European Union, which can only be achieved by reforming justice and reducing corruption. On the other side of the fence are the corrupt judges and prosecutors, who have been getting undeserved benefits all these years and who are clinging on to the rotten system they have built, because they fear that otherwise they will have to answer for their abuses. They have become rich and untouchable by injustices, and their aim is to continue exactly that. They are supported by other individuals who want to perpetuate corruption – criminal groups, politicians who promise them the annulment of reforms if they compromise changes in the justice system and the current government,” Maia Sandu said in an interview with ZdG.