Parliament meets to examine state of emergency in Moldova

Chisinau, 17 March /MOLDPRES/- MPs are meeting today to consider a draft law amending Law No212 / 2004 (Article 4, 20, 22, 24, 25) on the state of emergency, siege and war regime.

The state of emergency in Moldova will be set up under the draft from 17 March to 15 April 2020. During the state of emergency, the Commission for Emergencies will issue enforceable provisions for the heads of central and local public administration authorities, economic agents, public institutions and citizens.

According to the legislation on state of emergency, siege and war, "state of emergency" is defined as a set of measures of a political, economic, social and public order nature, which is provisionally established in some localities or throughout the country in case of triggering emergencies, which makes it necessary to prevent, reduce and liquidate their consequences.

By law, during the state of emergency, depending on the concrete situation, the following measures can be applied: provisional evacuation of the citizens from the areas that present a danger to life and their obligatory insurance with permanent or temporary accommodation places; establishing a special regime for entering and leaving the country; ordering to rationalize the consumption of food and other products of strict necessity; setting up the quarantine regime and other mandatory sanitary-epidemic measures; carrying out under the law the requisitions of goods to prevent and eliminate consequences of situations that required the declaration of the state of emergency; establishing a special working regime for economic agents and public institutions, solving other issues on their activity, necessary for carrying out the rescue-unblocking works and other non-deferred works; changing the procedure for appointing and dismissing heads of economic agents and public institutions; the prohibition of the resignation of the workers, except for the cases provided by the legislation for this period; calling on citizens to provide services in the public interest under the law; setting up special rules for the use of telecommunications means.

At the same time, during the state of emergency, the Commission for Emergencies has the following powers: it issues provisions on measures to protect people and property, to locate and liquidate the consequences of emergencies, to defend the rule of law and to maintain or restore the legal status; controls the activity of the commissions for emergencies of the local public administration authorities and analyzes the way of the rescue and intervention operations, adopts measures for the timely provision of these commissions with the necessary forces and means; exercise the exclusive right to prohibit the conduct of meetings, public demonstrations and other mass events;

coordinates the activity of media on informing the population about the causes and proportions of the exceptional situation, about the measures taken by the Government to prevent the danger, the liquidation of the consequences of this situation and the protection of the population, as well as on familiarizing the population with the rules of behavior during the exceptional situation; provides, in case of necessity, the temporary cessation of gas supply, electricity and drinking water; limits or prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages; establishes the procedure for the appointment and dismissal of the heads of the economic agents and of the public institutions, the cases when the dismissal of the workers is allowed; establishes the special regime of use of airspace.

So far, the authorities have decided to apply several measures to protect people, including the prohibition of flights, entry of foreigners into the country, the suspension of the activity of the trade units, except for pharmacies, grocery stores and fuel stations, as well as the suspension of the education process.