Electricity is getting more expensive. A kilowatt hour will cost almost 22% more, with the new tariff going up to 2 lei and 64 bani (around 0.13 euro) per kW hour now. 

Important news in the field of justice. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA) is to be headed by a female prosecutor from Moldova who has handled corruption cases in the United States. Veronica Dragalin, the winner of the competition for the position of PA chief prosecutor is a Doctor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law and an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Central California, speaking Romanian, English, Spanish, Russian, German and Italian.

In other justice news, the prosecution of criminal cases could be done even in the absence of the person concerned, if they evade prosecution or trial. A draft to this effect was approved with the votes of 78 deputies – including from the parliamentary opposition. 

Important news from Strasbourg. Leaders of political groups in the European Parliament are calling on EU heads of state and government to grant candidate country status to Moldova and Ukraine and to take steps to adopt a similar decision for Georgia, at the meeting the latter will have on 23-24 June.

The Republic of Moldova has a new government agent at the ECtHR. Dumitru Obadă, Chief Prosecutor of the Criminological Analysis, Opinion and Legislation Proposals Section of the Directorate for Policy, Reforms and Protection of the Interests of Society of the Prosecutor General’s Office, is Moldova’s new government agent before the European Court of Human Rights. 

The ECtHR condemned Moldova in the case of Valeriu Boboc. The state must pay 50 thousand euros as moral damages and 7 thousand euros as costs and expenses to the family of the young man killed during the protests in April 2009. Although welcoming the decision, Victor Boboc, the father of the young man beaten to death, says that the Chisinau prosecutor’s office should investigate cases related not only to the murder of his son but also to other young people mistreated during the protests. Valeriu Pleșca, one of the lawyers who represented the Boboc family at the ECtHR, says the court’s decision could lead to a review of criminal cases.

No more house arrest for Dorin Damir. The godson of former Democratic leader Vladimir Plahotniuc, under investigation in the case of fictitious employment at Directorate 5, was provisionally released under judicial control for 60 days. Among the obligations set by the court are: not to leave Moldova except with the permission of the court; to surrender his passport to the court; not to enter into contact with witnesses in the criminal case; not to go to public places, except for daily needs.

Doctor Virgiliu Urechi, head of the radiology department at the Oncology Institute, will go before the magistrates. The anti-corruption prosecutor’s office announced that the case in which he is accused of “committing five episodes of passive corruption” was sent to court. ZdG previously wrote that Virgiliu Urechi was detained in flagrante delicto after allegedly demanding €2,000 to secure the admission of a cancer patient and to rush the start of cancer treatment.

The recent price increases have been felt by the citizens of the Republic of Moldova, and one of the products the prices of which have risen significantly has been sunflower oil. Following a journalistic investigation, Ziarul de Gardă found that the oil market in Moldova is practically controlled by a single company – Trans Oil, which belongs to Vaja Jhashi, an old friend of oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc.