Vetting and Justice Reform in the Republic of Moldova

In December 2021, the government of Moldova adopted the Strategy for Ensuring the Independence and Integrity of the Justice Sector, 2022-20251 (henceforth: ‘justice sector reform strategy’), aiming to ensure the integrity and accountability of justice sector stakeholders and hence increasing society’s trust in the justice sector. As part of this strategy, the government decided to conduct an extraordinary vetting exercise of judges and prosecutors, to improve the quality, professionalism and integrity of the justice sector.

In close consultation with international partners, such as the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, the Moldovan government mapped out a concept to conduct this vetting, starting with the self-governing bodies of the Moldovan justice sector: the Superior Council of the Magistracy (SCM) and the Superior Council of Prosecution (SCP).

On 16 March 2022, the law on pre-vetting of candidates to the judicial and prosecutorial councils was adopted. The law foresees an assessment of the ethical and financial integrity of future members of the SCM and SCP by an evaluation committee composed of three national and three international members. Initially, the pre-vetting would also entail the Specialised Bodies of the SCM and SCP. However, due to delays in the process, the pre-vetting focuses only on members of the SCM/SCP. The vetting of members of Specialised Bodies is taken over by the judicial and prosecutorial vetting commissions, which started in the course of the Summer and Autumn of 2023 respectively.

This Action, funded by the European Union through the EU Delegation in Chisinau and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, supports the last phase of this pre-vetting and facilitates the full vetting of judges in Moldova and also offer supporting capacity building measures, particularly for the SCM. The vetting of prosecutors will be taken up in parallel by a US-funded action. The full vetting of judges will comprise the vetting of members of the Supreme Court of Justice, justice of the courts of appeal and candidates for leadership positions in courts of first instance. Finally, the project will support the secondment of a Moldovan Liaison Prosecutor to EUROJUST to enhance judicial cooperation in criminal matters between the Republic of Moldova and EU member state countries.