Five magistrates have applied for temporary transfer to the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) and the matter will be examined by the Superior Council of Magistrates (SCM) at a meeting scheduled for Wednesday 18 October.

Some of the judges have previously expressed their intention to join the SCJ.

Dorin Munteanu, from the Buiucani court in Chisinau, who applied for a transfer, has also entered the competition announced by the SCM to replace a judge at the supreme court.

Dorin Munteanu was appointed to the position of investigating judge in July 2009 at the Basarabeasca Court for a term of 5 years. By decree of the President of the Republic of Moldova of 30 April 2014, he was reconfirmed as a judge until reaching the age limit.

ZdG reported in November 2019 that Dorin Munteanu, who was accused in 2017 of passing an unlawful decision releasing a person from detention and subsequently leaving the country, was acquitted by the court after the prosecutor who prosecuted the case dropped the charges. He returned to the system, at the Central Office of the Chisinau Court, after almost three years, on 10 December 2019.

Another judge, Stelian Teleucă, tried to reach the SCJ as early as spring 2021.

The magistrate of the Chisinau Court of Appeal was part of the panel that examined the money laundering case of fugitive former MP Ilan Shor. In the autumn of 2021, the Șor case was assigned for examination to magistrates Stelian Teleucă, Oxana Robu and Ion Bulhac. Then, at the first hearing, Teleucă filed a request to abstain from examining the case – a request that was rejected. However, the judge was not ultimately part of the panel that sentenced Shor to 15 years in prison.

ZdG wrote about Stelian Teleucă in October 2021, in the context of the judge’s request to be promoted to the SCJ.

“Judge Teleucă’s million-lei house still unregistered at the land registry”

ZdG reported in 2021 that Stelian Teleucă lives in a building built by his family in recent years on a 7-acre plot of land on Dragomirna Street in Chisinau, bought in 2012. Although the judge indicates in his declaration of assets and interests that the building is worth 0 lei, in reality, it costs several million, and is already almost ready. The house is not yet in use, not being registered with the land registry, but there are several signs that the judge’s family is already living there. Near the house, we found a BMW X1 car, declared by the judge.

When asked by ZdG, Stelian Teleucă said that the building is built under the building permit issued by the Chisinau City Hall in 2014 and that “financial sources accumulated over the years were used for the construction of the house, including from his work as a senior lawyer at BC “Victoriabank” SA, where I was employed for a period of almost 10 years, from the bank loans contracted, the last in the amount of 425 thousand lei, due in 2036, the sale of the parents’ apartment for the amount of 900 thousand lei in 2015 and the sale of the apartment obtained by mortgage for the amount of 639.4 thousand lei in 2016″.

The judge states that “the total declared income, together with the wife’s income for 2020 from basic salaries, teaching activity, pensions and allowances, sales of goods, remittances, is 701.8 thousand lei and 5 thousand euros, which is an average of 67.2 thousand lei per month”. “The origin of the mentioned financial sources, including invested in the construction of the house, as well as the construction itself, are reflected in the declarations of wealth and personal interests filed annually. Approximately 1.45 million lei were invested in the construction of the house. At the moment the house is not completed, it is not connected to the gas and sewage network, but we decided to live in the house with our family because neither I nor my wife own another house”, said the magistrate.

He allegedly sold the apartment he bought at a preferential price of only 350 euros per square metre

Stelian Teleucă bought and subsequently sold an 89 sq.m. apartment in the Ceucari Street block, intended for judges, at preferential prices. The judge invested in it since 2014, receiving the keys in April 2017. A month and a half later, he sold it for 639,000 lei, equivalent to 31,000 euros (at the leu/euro exchange rate at the time of the transaction), according to his declaration of assets and interests.

A simple calculation shows that the judge allegedly sold the house for just 350 euros per square metre, i.e. exactly the price he bought it for, well below the market price. In 2015 and 2016, the judge also incurred two debts: one from MAIB, amounting to 425 thousand lei, and another from his mother, Valentina, amounting to 90 thousand lei, to be repaid by 2035 and 2036.

Disciplinary investigation after a ZdG article, but not punished

Stelian Teleucă has been a judge since 2006. He initially worked at the Botanica Court, and in 2014 he was promoted to the Chisinau CA. In 2014, 2017 and 2020 he was rated “very good” and “excellent” by the CEPJ. There is no information about ECtHR judgments in which the State was convicted following decisions taken by Stelian Teleucă at the Botanica Court or CA Chisinau.

In the years 2015-2021, the name of Judge Stelian Teleucă appears in 13 decisions of the Disciplinary Board, in all of which it was found that the complaints lodged against the judge were unfounded. One of the complaints is based on a ZdG article, “Public land worth tens of millions, shared by three magistrates and a bailiff”, published in February 2015. We noted at the time that a bailiff, under a suspicious court order, had assigned himself the role of local public authority by organising auctions to sell public land. Usually, the auctions were advertised in a Christian-themed newspaper, and were won by unknown firms with interests in construction, founded ‘on the take’. Two magistrates from the Botanica court, including Stelian Teleucă, ruled that the auctions were legal and that several public lands were transferred to private ownership without the municipality’s consent. The Disciplinary Board, which was referred to it by Ion Păduraru, then secretary-general of the president’s office, found no wrongdoing in the magistrate’s actions.

Stelian Teleucă was part of the panel of judges who acquitted former MP Constantin Țuțu in the Codrii Orheiului murder case. By decision of December 2019, the SCJ overturned the decision of the CA and ordered a retrial of the case. In the opinion of the appeal court, the appellate court did not get to the essence of the factual and legal issue, there was a discrepancy between what the court held and the actual content of the evidence, ignoring obvious aspects, which resulted in proposing a premature and unsubstantiated conclusion.

Previously, the panels to which Teleucă belonged had issued other decisions, acquitting several judges, a bailiff involved in the Laundromat and some of the figures in the FISC corruption case, which included a former head of the institution, Nicolae Vicol.

The judge who made the decision to release star lawyer Valerian Mînzat, sentenced to nine years in prison, early

Ghenadie Comerzan, from the Edineț Court of Appeals in Briceni, has also asked to be transferred to the SCJ. He was appointed as a judge in December 2006, having also served as vice-president and president of the Briceni Court.

Comerzan is the one who made the favourable decision on the amnesty, in September 2022, of star lawyer Valerian Mînzat, who had been sentenced to nine years in prison in 2015, of which he served five years.

Judge Ghenadie Comerzan also ordered, in January 2020, the reduction of the sentence of Alexandru Covali, alias “Shalun”, who ran an extensive human trafficking, child trafficking and pimping network, by 651 days (over one year and 9 months) as a reward for the time Covali was detained in Penitentiary No. 13, including pre-trial detention.

Two other magistrates – Andrei Gutu from the Balti Court of Appeal, central seat, and Elvira Lavciuc from the Orhei Court of Appeal, are applying for the first time for positions at the SCJ.

Andrei Gutu was appointed to the post of judge in June 2006, although then-President Vladimir Voronin refused his appointment.

In 2022, the magistrate was disciplined in the form of a reprimand for allegedly being absent from work “without reasonable justification”, which affected the work of the court.

Earlier, Gutu had spoken out against the external evaluation of judges, according to the northern press, saying that “the new government promised this external evaluation as an election slogan”.

Elvira Lavciuc has been in the judiciary since April 2009. Over the years she has served as president of the Soldanesti Court and vice-president of the Orhei Court.

The magistrate was targeted in several disciplinary proceedings between 2015 and 2017, but the SCM’s Disciplinary College rejected the appeals each time.

Who are the judges who temporarily transferred to the SCJ. SCM decision

At the beginning of May 2023, out of the 14 candidates for transfer to the SCJ, 7 were transferred, as of 10 May, for temporary replacement of vacant positions. They are magistrates Aliona Donos, Sergiu Daguța, Ion Malanciuc, Viorica Puica, Oxana Parfeni, Boris Talpă and Ghenadie Eremciuc.

The SCM rejected the candidatures of judges Veronica Cupcea, Irina Tonov, Valeriu Arhip, Alexandru Gafton, Dumitru Fujenco and Igor Mînăscurtă. Nelea Budăi withdrew her application for transfer.

The term of temporary transfer was set for 6 months. According to the SCM, this term can be reviewed.