Venice Commission adopts opinion on Moldovan Constitutional Court's rulings

Chisinau, 21 June /MOLDPRES/ - The Venice Commission today issued its opinion on the decisions by Moldova's Constitutional Court (CCM), adopted on 7-9 June.

In an opinion adopted today, the Council of Europe’s constitutional law experts, the Venice Commission, found that the conditions for the dissolution of parliament clearly did not exist in the Republic of Moldova on 7 or 8 June 2019.

The Venice Commission considers that the Constitutional Court did not respect its own procedures nor the principle of equality of the parties when dealing with the recent political crisis.

It also recalls that an essential role of the Constitutional Court is to maintain equal distance from all branches of power and to act as an impartial arbiter in case of collision between them, whilst respecting the solutions reached by democratically legitimate institutions. 

In the opinion, the Commission says that the dissolution was based on the alleged expiration of a three-month deadline to form a government after the parliamentary elections held earlier this year and finds that the procedural rights of both the President and of parliament were severely affected be the number and the high speed of the rulings issued by the Constitutional Court. 

The Opinion was prepared at the request of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland.  

Shortly after the decision by the Venice Commission had been announced, President Igor Dodon came up with a reaction. He said that "the only way of re-establishing the constitutional stability is the in corpore resignation of the Constitutional Court's judges."