Last week, the Constitutional Court of Moldova considered the request of the head of state Maia Sandu, who asked to state the existence of the necessary conditions allowing the dissolution of the parliament
Sandu’s request was based on the fact that the candidates she proposed for the post of prime minister, represented by Natalia Gavrilita and Igor Grosu, were not approved by the parliament.
Indeed, during the voting at the plenary session of the parliament, not a single deputy voted for the government led by Gavrilita, and the vote for the Grosu government did not take place at all due to the lack of a quorum, which is equivalent to an unsuccessful attempt to establish the government.
However, according to the Moldovan Constitution, the parliament cannot be dissolved if there is a parliamentary majority that has nominated itself as prime minister. And there is such a candidacy in the person of the Moldovan Ambassador to Russia Vladimir Golovatyuk, for which 53 out of 101 deputies have signed. And yet this did not become the basis for the chairman of the Constitutional Court Domnika Manole and two more judges to make a decision obliging M. Sandu to nominate V. Golovatyuk for approval by the parliament.
What are the reasons for such a decision of the Constitutional Court, the main purpose of the creation and functioning of which is precisely to ensure the legality and adoption of decisions that fully comply with the country’s Constitution?
Yes, the Constitutional Court should guard the rule of law, but this is the ideal. And the realities of the last decade in Moldova are very far from ideal. Political processes are increasingly reminiscent of a race in a circle, in the center of which is a state structure, which bears the grandiloquent name of the Constitutional Court. It is to this state body that the dubious honor of authorship belongs to the most resonant and at the same time the most paradoxical legal decisions and verdicts.
No less strange and paradoxical is the fact that the majority of the judges of this highest legal body of the country, in addition to the citizenship of the Republic of Moldova, also have the citizenship of neighboring Romania. At the same time, it is impossible to ignore one seemingly insignificant, but very curious and significant nuance – if the constitutional judges received Moldovan citizenship by birthright and it was not conditioned by any formalities, then upon receiving Romanian citizenship, all of them took an oath of allegiance to a neighboring country.
Since the pro-Western political parties came to power in 2009, the Constitutional Court has actually ceased to be a legal body and has transformed into one of the main instruments of political struggle. This instrument has been repeatedly used to amend and supplement the Constitution, which it was intended, on the contrary, to protect. In fact, it will not be an exaggeration to say that in recent years both the judges themselves and their political patrons have ceased to be ashamed of the political involvement of this institution and the adoption of politically motivated decisions by it.
At the same time, individual decisions of the Constitutional Court of Moldova are so egregious that they make an impression even after many years. For example, in 2013, he interpreted the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova in such an amazing way that he invalidated its provision on the name of the state language as Moldovan. The Constitutional Court ruled that the text of the Declaration of Independence of Moldova, where Romanian is named as the state language, may take precedence over the supreme law. The absurdity of this decision is obvious not only to specialists in constitutional law, but also to ordinary citizens. However, from the point of view of Romanian citizens sitting in the Constitutional Court, this is absolutely normal.
In 2017, the Constitutional Court actually “invented” the procedure for transferring the powers of the President of the country to the Speaker of Parliament. This happened five times, when the head of state, Igor Dodon, refused to promulgate a number of appointments and laws that were adopted in the interests of the oligarch Plahotniuc. And each time, by decision of the Constitutional Court, this was done by a relative of the oligarch, speaker of parliament A. Candu.
In 2018, the Constitutional Court, using a procedure that does not exist in the legislation, declared “obsolete” the law “On the Functioning of Languages on the Territory of the Moldavian SSR”, adopted in the Soviet years, but also in force in independent Moldova, which was the cornerstone of the concept of using the languages of national country. And when this law was again adopted in parliament last December, the Constitutional Court declared it inconsistent with the Constitution.
For the composition of the Constitutional Court, staffed by Plahotniuc, the X-hour came in June 2019. Then the court “ahead of schedule” recognized the existence of grounds for the dissolution of parliament, managed to cancel all adopted and invalidate all future decisions of the new parliamentary majority. Only after Plahotniuc fled the country, the constitutional judges were forced to resign and a new composition of the Constitutional Court was formed.
Nevertheless, the tradition of using this judicial body in political struggle has not disappeared anywhere, and today, in fact, there is a repetition of the history of 2019. Acting under Plahotniuc’s regime as a “legal laundry” that “laundered” the oligarch’s political decisions and gave them a legal character, the Constitutional Court continues to pursue the same line under Sandu.
The new composition of the Constitutional Court, which is dominated by not just supporters of the pro-Western path of Moldova’s development, but citizens of a state that is a member of both the EU and NATO, by all means provide legal support for Sandu’s line (by the way, also having Romanian citizenship) on the dissolution of the existing parliament and early elections.
What is the reason for such a stubborn and consistent desire of the president for early elections? One of the main explanations is that their implementation was one of Sandu’s main campaign promises. There is also no doubt that in the wake of victory in the presidential campaign, having worked out the organization of voting and mobilizing the electorate in the European diaspora, Sandu and her supporting PAS party expect to achieve a majority in parliament and form a government without the need to look for partners to create a ruling coalition. These calculations are very illusory, but nevertheless, if a number of conditions are met, such as, for example, low electoral activity in Moldova itself, PAS is able to come close enough to the desired result.
At the same time, one of the most probable versions, which at the same time explains the unprecedented level of interference of Western ambassadors in the internal affairs of the Republic of Moldova, is the relationship between Sandu’s course on early elections and the end of the term of US Ambassador to Chisinau Derek Hogan this autumn. The latter actively consulted the Belarusian opposition during the protests that took place in Belarus this year after the presidential elections. As you know, the outcome of the development of events that took place in Belarus cannot be included in the asset of Mr. Hogan. That is why he needs to provide another “success story” in the shortest possible time, at least in Moldova.
Everything is being done for this, even despite the fact that Sandu’s rating has fallen sharply in recent weeks, especially after the story of the kidnapping in Chisinau by the Ukrainian special services of the Kiev judge Nikolai Chaus, who requested political asylum in the Republic of Moldova. There is every reason to believe that this operation was carried out by agreement between the presidents of Moldova and Ukraine during Sandu’s visit to Kiev.
In order to hold early elections in the summer, as planned in the presidential administration and the US embassy, they need to remove another obstacle – to achieve the lifting of the state of emergency declared by parliament. This decision of the legislative body of Moldova has already been appealed against in the same Constitutional Court.
Nevertheless, the parliament is not going to give up. Deputies from various parties, including those who are not part of the parliamentary majority, condemned the rush to hold early elections.
As for the Party of Socialists, the head of the PSRM has already stated that “we are witnessing an attempt to usurp state power through three judges of the Constitutional Court. These judges want to repeat the fate of the judges of the Plahotniuc regime. Then the judges received instructions from Plahotniuc, now, probably from Sandu ”.
Speaking about the role of the president, I. Dodon said:
“The Socialist Party believes that Maia Sandu personally participated in an anti-national and anti-constitutional conspiracy against our country and its people. We demand the resignation of Maia Sandu and the holding of early presidential elections in the Republic of Moldova”.
A vote of no confidence in three judges of the Constitutional Court, who adopted a scandalous decision by a majority of votes, will be considered at one of the next parliamentary sessions. This was stated by the head of the Socialist faction Corneliu Furculita.
“This decision was made by three out of five judges. The other two judges have a separate opinion – they do not agree with this decision. That is, today we view the actions of these three judges as an attempt to usurp power.
That is why the Socialist Party is starting the procedure in parliament to revoke the mandates of the judges who made such a decision. The laws and the Constitution must be observed”, – the deputy noted.
Thus, in the near future, the confrontation between the parliament, on the one hand, and the president, on the other, will clearly reach a new level.
Ilya Kiselev, “Rhythm of Eurasia”