A report presented on Thursday, October 26, by the Legal Resources Centre from Moldova (LRCM) reveals a number of shortcomings in the work of the Superior Council of Prosecutors (SCP), including vague reasons for decisions, examination of issues behind closed doors, and systematic overshooting of the deadline for publication of SCP decisions.

According to the report, on average it takes 42 working days for the SCP to publish a decision on the official website, which is four times longer than the legal deadline. Only 4% of decisions issued during the monitoring period (1 January 2020 – 30 June 2023) were published on time.

“We identified SCP decisions that were published more than 520 working days after approval, and others from 2021 that have not been published to date. This constitutes a serious misconduct of the Supreme Public Prosecutors’ Council and raises suspicions about the transparency of its work,” said Daniel Goinic, Programme Director at the LRCM and one of the authors of the report.

The analysis published by the LRCM shows that most of the adversarial discussions took place “in deliberation”, with no clear rationale for the SCP members’ decision-making, and about a third of the issues were discussed behind closed doors, without society having access.

Thus, according to a release from the LRCM, out of 109 meetings planned during the monitoring period, the SCP met 90 times (83%), the other 19 meetings (17%) were postponed due to lack of quorum. Similarly, unpredictable planning of meetings was also noted, with the meeting day frequently changed. Most of the SCP’s decisions are vaguely reasoned, with the emphasis on reporting the legal circumstances and technical transposition of legal provisions, without reporting the reasoning of the SCP members behind the decision. This practice is most often applied in the case of approval or rejection of interim appointments to positions in the prosecution system.

“For the efficiency and transparency of the SCP’s work, we propose the establishment of a predictable day of the week for ordinary meetings, the use of electronic signatures when signing SCP decisions, individual hearings of candidates nominated for key positions in the prosecutor’s office, as well as the resumption of the practice of publishing the minutes of meetings, as provided for in the SCP Regulation”, said Andrei Nasu, legal advisor at the LRCM.

The authors’ recommendations also include strict compliance with the legal provisions requiring meetings to be held and topics to be discussed in public, the establishment of clear criteria for placing topics on the supplementary agenda so that all SCP members have sufficient time to consider them, and for discussing topics in closed session.

In order to eliminate shortcomings concerning the publication of SCP documents and decisions, the LRCM lawyers recommend supplementing or increasing the number of staff units in the SCP apparatus, improving the reasoning of decisions concerning interim management positions, and publishing the separate opinion as part of the SCP decision.

At this stage, the draft research is proposed for consultation to the community of justice professionals. Comments and suggestions can be sent until 15 November 2023 to andrei.nasu@crjm.org. Thereafter, the study will be published and sent to all interested persons.