The Independent Integrity Assessment Commission for candidates for membership in the self-administration bodies of judges and prosecutors (Pre-Vetting Commission) announced on Friday, 16 August, the adoption of a decision concluding that Dumitru Pușca, a candidate for the position of member of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM), currently a judge at the Balti Court of Appeal, was not promoted.

“The basis for the candidate’s failure to pass the assessment of financial and ethical integrity was his letter to the Commission on 9 September 2022, stating that he was withdrawing from the competition,” reads an information note issued by the Commission.

According to the Law No 26/2022 on some measures related to the selection of candidates for membership in the self-administrative bodies of judges and prosecutors, the withdrawal of a candidate from the competition after the institution responsible for organising the elections or the competition has sent the list of candidates to the Commission, is equivalent to the non-passing of the assessment, regardless of the reason given by the candidate.

Dumitru Pușca is a judge at the Balti Court of Appeal (CA). He began his career in 2005 at the Soroca Court. In July 2011 he was transferred to the position of judge at the court of first instance in Balti and two years later he was promoted to the Court of Appeal in Balti. According to the information of the Judicial Inspection, 16 petitions and 20 complaints were registered against the judge over the years, but all of them were rejected.

According to the information posted on the “Lawyers for Human Rights” page, two decisions of the panel of which Judge Pusca was a member have been examined by the ECtHR. As a result, the State was ordered to pay damages of €13.3 thousand.

The “Dogotari v Moldova” case. In this case, the ECtHR found a violation of the Convention’s articles on respect for human rights, the right to liberty and security and the right to respect for private and family life, after a pensioner from the Glodeni district complained that he had been forcibly confined in a psychiatric institution for six days without the guarantees provided for in national law. A criminal case had been opened against the pensioner after he punched Valentina Buliga, former Minister of Labour, Social Protection and Family, in the face for mocking his question. At the request of the prosecutors, the Glodeni Court ordered the man’s medical-psychiatric examination and he was placed in a psychiatric hospital. The man challenged the decision, but a panel of judges of the Balti Administrative Court, which included Pușca, rejected the appeal as unfounded.

In a comment to ZdG, the magistrate said he regretted the violation committed. “At that time we had just started working at the appeal court, but the decision is collegial. That’s how it happened,” he said.

Pasha v Moldova case. Here the ECtHR found a violation of Articles 5 § 3, 6 and 13 of the Convention, after the applicant complained about the unlawfulness of his detention, lack of access to the material in the case against him, and lack of an effective remedy. The Court noted that, despite finding that the applicant’s detention had been contrary to domestic law, the national courts had not awarded the applicant compensation. The Court recalled that a decision or measure in favour of an applicant is not, in principle, sufficient to deprive the individual of his or her status as a victim.

With reference to this case, Pușca argues that this is an error, because the violation of Pasha’s right was found by the time the criminal case came before them.

According to the declaration of wealth and personal interests for 2021, the magistrate declares an apartment with an area of 64.1 square meters, purchased in 2011 and valued at 172 thousand lei, another apartment, from 2016, with an area of 30.3 square meters, valued at 847 thousand lei, and another from 1999. In 2021, the judge bought another apartment, with an area of 69.1 square meters, for which he would have paid 700 thousand lei or the equivalent of 35 thousand euros.

In 2020, the magistrate bought a Volvo XC60 car, manufactured in 2013, for 200 thousand lei. Pușca also owns shares in Agroinvest-prim and DAAC-Hermes, a company controlled by former communist and later socialist municipal councillor Vasile Chirtoca. Last year, the magistrate had a salary income of about 323 thousand lei, and in 2020 about 304 thousand lei. Pușca declares debts of more than one million lei, having taken out four loans, two of which in 2021.

In February 2016, the National Integrity Commission, the predecessor of the National Integrity Authority (ANI), ordered the initiation of a control on the possible violation of the legal regime of declaration of income and property by Pușca. Three months later, the magistrate was removed from the control.

The Commission’s decision not to pass the assessment was sent to the candidate and to the institution responsible for organising the competition, i.e. the CSM, for publication on the institution’s official website, the Commission said.

The Commission’s decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice within 5 days of its receipt, pursuant to Article 14 of Law No 26/2022 on certain measures related to the selection of candidates for membership of self-administrative bodies of judges and prosecutors.

Previously, two other judges, candidates for the position of member of the CSM, did not pass the evaluation. This is the case of magistrate Gheorghe Balan from the Chisinau Court of Appeals, Buiucani seat, who did not submit the Declaration of Assets and Personal Interests for 5 years, which was established by the Commission decision of 21 July 2022. The withdrawal from the competition of the candidate Mihail Cojocaru, judge of the Balti Court of Appeal, central seat, was also qualified by the Commission as a failure to pass the evaluation, according to the decision of 11 July 2022.