People's Assembly from Gagauz autonomy discontented with revision of juridical map

Chisinau, 17 June /MOLDPRES/ - The leadership of the Gagauz People’s Assembly (local parliament) has issued a declaration addressed to President Maia Sandu, thereby expressing discontent with the recent amendment to the national legislation which regulates the work of law courts.  

In particular, the Gagauz lawmakers signatories to the declarations underline that the amendments made to the law will lead to the liquidation of the Comrat Court of Appeal and the transferring of the powers to the South Court of Appeal with headquarters in Cahul, as well as the liquidation of the courts from Ceadar-Lunga, Vulcanesti and Comrat.  

The People’s Assembly from Comrat asks the Moldovan president to send the law back to parliament for improvement, invoking the fact that the Law on the legal status of Gagauzia provides for the work of a Court of Appeal and first instance courts in the autonomy.    

It is worth mentioning that, at a plenary meeting on 13 June, the parliament backed the government’s proposal on the revision of the judicial map. The draft law sees the creation of three courts of appeal: North Court of Appeal; Centre Court of Appeal and South Court of Appeal, through the merger of the Comrat Court of Appeal with the Cahul-based one.   

„The judges of the merged courts of appeals are regarded judges of the newly created court of appeal,’’ reads the draft law adopted by the parliament.   

In the informative note to the draft law, the Justice Ministry says that ‘’the merger of the Cahul Court of Appeal with the Comrat Court of Appeal does not imply expenses in terms of staff. ‘’The South Court of Appeal which is to be set up will work at two headquarters which belong to the courts of appeal which merge,’’ the Justice Ministry notes.

The draft law for the amendment of normative acts (on the revision of the judicial map) envisages also the merger of some first instance courts.