Moldovan cabinet blocks 70 million lei from judicial system's budget

Chisinau, 26 February /MOLDPRES/ - The financial of the judicial system has been blocked till the approval of amendments to the budget law. Finance Minister Serghei Puscuta made statements to this effect in the beginning of a today’s cabinet meeting.

The official noted that today he had signed an order on the blocking of allocations for financing the judicial system, provided for in the state budget law, worth 70 million lei.

Puscuta specified that the action took place in strict accordance with the law on public money, which allows the Finance Ministry to make this blocking exercise for a term of up to 60 days. “On this period, we will come up in government and parliament with the draft law on the rectification of the state budget, where the expenses related to the justice sector should be cut by 70 million lei,” the minister said.   

The action takes place in the context of PM Ion Chicu’s demand to compensate 70 million lei from the budget earmarked for the judicial system, in order to provide this money recompense to the people involved in the Gemeni (Twins) file, after Moldova has been obliged by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to return the sum to the injured people.   

President Igor Dodon has earlier said that a mechanism was necessary, through which the flats and vehicles of the judges guilty of Moldova’s conviction by ECHR are collected for the state’s benefit.