The Superior Council of Magistracy proposed Viorica Puica to the plenary of the Parliament to be appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of Justice. She was the only one chosen from the six candidates after Ghenadie Pavliuc withdrew his candidacy. 

On June 9, the Superior Council of Magistracy chose from seven candidates aspiring to become judges in the Supreme Court of Justice only one candidate, Viorica Puica. ZdG analyzed the CVs of the seven candidates aspiring to become judges in the Supreme Court of Justice. 

Sergiu Furdui has been working at the Chișinău Court of Appeal since 2012. Furdui was the vice-president of the Criminal College of the Supreme Court of Justice. In 2012, he signed a document that outraged several NGOs. The document recognized indirectly the independence of the breakaway Transnistrian region. 

According to the document signed by the magistrate, the breakaway Transnistrian region would be a separate state, and the decisions issued by its courts would not fall within the competence of the Supreme Court of Justice. Judge Furdui’s conclusions came after the courts on the left bank of the Nistru River convicted several Moldovan citizens to years in prison.

The Superior Council of Magistracy warned the judge about his decision regarding the breakaway Transnistrian region.

Anatolie Minciună has been a judge since 1991. In 2008 he was promoted to the Chișinău Court of Appeal. He was promoted to the Chișinău Court of Appeal by the members of the Superior Council of Magistracy because the then President of Moldova, Vladimir Voronin rejected his candidacy, accusing him of a mismatch between his assets and earned income. 

Following the investigations, it was established a mismatch between Minciună’s assets and his earned income. 

At the beginning of 2008, the Superior Council of Magistracy requested again Minciună’s appointment to the Chișinău Court of Appeal and Voronin accepted, thus Minciună became a judge at the Chișinău Court of Appeal. In 2015, his name appeared in a corruption case. 

Viorica Puica has been a judge since 2002 and works at the Chișinău Court, Botanica district headquarters. Puica ran in several competitions for promotion to the position of judge at the Supreme Court of Justice. Although she often had the highest score, she was not designated by the Superior Council of Magistracy as the winner of the competitions. In 2017, she also aspired to be a member of the Superior Council of Magistracy.

Previously, the judge criticized in her speeches the judicial system in Moldova, stating that it lacks independence.  

Oxana Robu has been a judge since 2004 and was appointed to the Chișinău Court of Appeal in 2014. Robu’s name appears in several well-known cases in Moldova. Robu was the president of the court panel that on October 4, 2017, suspended the prison sentence on behalf of the former head of the Public Transport and Communications Department of Chișinău City Hall, Igor Gamretki, sentenced by the first instance to two years in prison of semi-closed type, for influence-peddling in the file of paid parking lots in the capital. 

At the same time, Oxana Robu refused to examine the Shor case like several other judges from the Chișinău Court of Appeal. The magistrate motivated the request for recusal by the fact that she manages the case of fraud and money laundering regarding Veaceslav Platon, in which Ilan Shor has the status of the witness of the accusation.

Ghenadie Pavliuc is the vice-president of the Chișinău Court. The judge’s name is linked to several resonance files. Pavliuc is the one who in May 2015 applied to Ilan Shor, Moldovan controversial businessman involved in the Billion Theft, a house arrest warrant, releasing him three weeks later from the house arrest. 

Pavliuc is also the one who sent former Prime Minister Vlad Filat behind bars at prosecutors’ request. Pavliuc also saved from prison the former deputy Valeriu Guma, sentenced in Romania to four years in prison with execution. 

In the past, Pavliuc has participated in other resonance files, sentencing to years in prison Andrei Baştovoi, a businessman and member of the first Parliament, or saving from prison, in 2014, the lawyer Dorin Melinteanu, the son of a judge from the Chișinău Court of Appeal caught with a bribe.

In 2015, ZdG wrote that Ghenadie Pavliuc lives in a house worth millions, located in the capital.

Svetlana Garștea-Bria works at the Chișinău Court. According to magistrat.md, she became a magistrate in 1994, and in 2004 she was appointed as a judge until she reached the age limit. In 2016, Svetlana Garștea-Bria admitted the claims of Mariana Tăbuica, the sister of the former Minister of Justice, Vladimir Cebotari, and ordered the collection from the accounts of Moldatsa state-owned company of the amount of over 21,000 euros (415,650 lei).

Tăbuică was employed at Moldatsa state-owned company, working as a financial director of the company. In 2015, Tăbuică resigned following an audit report, showing that together with other colleagues she benefited from thousands of euros in addition to the salary income. Although the audit report was handed over to the National Anticorruption Center, the persons concerned were not held accountable.

At the same time, a decision of the magistrate was examined by the European Court (the case “Savca v. Moldova” of March 15, 2016).

Nina Arabadji  has been working in the system since 1996. In 2001, Arabadji was appointed as a judge by a presidential decree until she reached the age limit. 

The magistrate’s name appeared in a  CIJM investigation about the judges who received apartments from the Chișinău City Hall, obtaining three houses in five years. Previously, the magistrate applied for being a judge within the Supreme Court of Justice, but she did not accumulate enough points to be promoted.