65% of people from Chișinău are against same-sex marriages, whereas 59%  of them believe that housekeeping is the women’s responsibility.  The GENDERDOC-M information centre, in collaboration with Magenta Consulting, issued today a press release presenting the results of their jointly performed survey on people’s perceptions of the LGBT community, family roles distribution, particularly the responsibilities of women.

The survey was conducted by involving 815 people aged 25-45 years from the Moldovan capital city. Below are presented some of the survey’s outcomes:

• 75% of respondents said that women should pay more attention to their family than to their careers;
• 73% believe that marriage, children, grandchildren should not be postponed in life;
• 23% believe that decision-making is a man’s prerogative ( while 73% believe that both are responsible for this task);
• 28% of respondents said that raising and educating a child is the woman’s responsibility (71% said that both are responsible);
• 59% of respondents from Chișinău said that housekeeping is the woman’s responsibility;
• 72% consider that only women should take childcare leave from their jobs.
• However, 75% of respondents stated that they are ok with living together before marriage, and
• 65% of respondents said that it is normal for a man to cry.

As the survey presented, 55% of Chișinău’s population is against LGBT people, 37% have a neutral attitude and 7% support LGBT representatives. The percentage though, is not up to 98%, as some politicians promote. “The more LGBT people would open their identities and would tell people who they are, the more people will support them. The main reason of fear and judgement is the lack of knowledge,” explained Angelica Frolov, the representative of the GENDERDOC-M Information Center.

• 65% of the survey respondents stated that same-sex marriages should not be legalised, while 5% supported these kind of marriages and 26% of the respondents are neutral or do not have an opinion on this subject;
• The majority (69%) indicated that LGBT people should have the right “to do whatever they want, but at home, as long as no one sees them”;
• 18% say that organising public events should be a right granted to LGBT people as well;
• 71% of respondents said that the most discriminated people are based on their sexual orientation, being followed by the discrimination based on ethnicity;
• Of the interviewees, 10% said they know an LGBT person – 2% said that that person is part of the circle of friends they regularly see.

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In  a 2015 study conducted by the Council for Prevention and Elimination of Discrimination and Ensuring Equality in Moldova and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in consultation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Moldova, the stereotypical attitude of Moldovan people towards the sexual minorities representatives was examined through a focus group and a survey.

According to the study, the Moldovan society seems to be particularly categorical in terms of perceptions and attitudes towards people from
the LGBT group. The LGBT group members are often rejected by the vast majority of population. The participants in the focus groups  showed merely a revolting and aggressive attitude towards LGBT members. People are mainly against LGBT acceptance in society because they believe that this is contrary to the principles of their orthodox religion, family institution, as well as psycho-emotional and behavioural status of their children.

The survey results revealed the following:

• 35,7% of the respondents consider that LGBT people are “sick people – they do not know what they are doing and they need medical help”;
• while half of the respondents (49.5%) consider that LGBT people “are fully aware of what they do.”

What’s more, homosexual relationships were perceived by 52.5% of the respondents as a crime, stating that such people should be punished.

It is important to mention that most of the people with negative and even aggressive attitude towards sexual minorities usually had low socio-economic status, incomplete education or were located in remote rural areas, as the study presented.

The survey involved 1013 persons aged 18 and older.

Photo: hrc.org

President Igor Dodon and his declarations about the “Moldovan” language have caught again the international media’s attention. Euronews has published an article stating that Moldova has been warned to stop calling the Romanian language “Moldovan”.

The Romanian Academy, a government-backed cultural institute, has made an official declaration saying that the “Moldovan language” invoked by certain politicians from Moldova is, in fact, a dialect of the Romanian language. “To promote the idea of a “Moldovan” language, distinct from the Romanian one, is not only a distortion of a cultural reality and identity documented in all linguistic, historical and literary syntheses, but also an ideological manipulation, which the international community will never accept,” is mentioned in the statement.

The statement was issued after President Igor Dodon, spoke in favour of the “Moldovan” language during a speech at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, while the relations between the Governments of Romania and Moldova have been strained, as it is mentioned in the Euronews article.

In his speech on 29 January, Dodon said Moldova was committed to establishing a united Europe “from Lisbon to Vladivostok,” (a city in the far east of Russia).

The political scientist and researcher Dionis Cenușă explained the root cause of the existing problem for the international media outlet: “The linguistic issue has its roots from the Soviet times, when the Soviets created an artificial Moldovan identity different from the Romanian one,” he said.

“The use of the Romanian versus Moldovan language rhetoric has been damaging to the public discourse in both Bucharest and Chișinău, triggering and fuelling political conflicts on a matter will eventually prove to be detrimental to the people’s interests,” declared Radu Magdin, a political analyst.

“Although Moldova is a separate state, there is no question that the language spoken by the majority of Moldovans is Romanian.”

In 2013, the Constitutional Court of Moldova delivered a decision according to which, the Romanian and “Moldovan” languages were declared identical. However, the Article 13 of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova still states that the official language in Moldova is “Moldovan”, that being a usual matter of political and social disputes in the country.

According to the data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics, 53% of the total population of the Republic of Moldova declared “Moldovan” as their first language, whereas only 23,3% said Romanian was their native language at the 2014 national census. When it comes to the ethnical structure of the population, 75,1% declared themselves Moldovans and 7% Romanians.

“The Romanian Academy expressly requests the authorities of the Republic of Moldova to keep in the official use the correct and consecrated notions  of “Romanian language” and “Romanian history”, as the only ones valid for naming the present realities.” (The Romanian Academy)

More details about the historical context of the “Moldovan” language term here.

Photo: Radio Iasi

Often when talking about a judicial reform one can refer to improving the law, establishing a stronger judicial independence of prosecution, changes to the appointment procedure, establishing mandatory retirement age for judges or enhancing supervision over the activities in the area.

That is the case for the Republic of Moldova as well. But is it actually happening or is implemented only on paper? What is the hidden part of the iceberg when it comes to the Moldovan judiciary? Below are some events that happened lately:

Controllers with integrity problems

In December 2019, Prosecutor General, Alexandr Stoianoglo, signed an order to carry out controls at the Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organised Crime and Special Cases. Most of the 21 state prosecutors, appointed by the Prosecutor General, to verify the activity of the Prosecutors’ Offices have been found to have problems of integrity themselves in the last four years. Some of the controllers are even related or have common interests in the assigned controlled cases, wrote an investigation made by the anticoruptie.md portal.

The cases filed against the controllers at the Prosecutors’ Offices are related to offering or taking bribes, illicit enrichment, illegal transfers and influence peddling.

Vitalie Zamă, a lawyer representing the Association of Jurists for Human Rights, argues that prosecutors who have even a small connection with a filed case are forced to refrain from carrying out the control. “It is inadmissible for someone involved in a criminal case to have access to it,” he said.

Lilia Carasciuc, president of Transparency International Moldova, mentioned that if there are suspicions of conflict of interest or integrity issues regarding a prosecutor, he must be removed from such controls. “These prosecutors must have an immaculate reputation. Unfortunately, one almost can’t find such prosecutors in our country. In this case, it seems that the wolf was let to guard the sheep, but at least the most correct prosecutors had to be chosen to carry out the control,” Carasciuc declared as being cited by anticoruptie.md.

The former head of the Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office is still under arrest

Viorel Morari, former head of the Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office, was detained on January 10. A criminal case related to forgery of administrative documents and abuse of power was filed against him on December 26. Viorel Morari is suspected that, in March 2017, he received from Vladimir Plahotniuc a complaint that was registered against the legal requirements, filing a criminal case and subsequently criminal prosecution, and falsifying several procedural documents within the criminal case.

On January 29, the Chișinău District Court decided to extend the Morari’s preventive arrest by 20 days, until February 19.

Viorel Morari requested that his case would be sent to the court as soon as possible in order to have the opportunity to prove his innocence, according to the declarations of his lawyer.

Morari was removed from office, at the beginning of December, during an internal control of prosecutors initiated by the new Prosecutor General Alexandru Stoianoglo. The decision to perform the controls was issued after Viorel Morari’s announcement of resuming the investigation into the Russian financing of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova.

Victor Munteanu, the department director at the Soros Moldova Foundation stated: “I see in this scandal [ referring to the previously mentioned integrity problems of prosecutors] the Stoianoglo’s attempt to centralise all the power of the institution. I suppose this is not done without political support. An argument would be that the control at the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office began after Morari announced about the resumption of the criminal prosecution regarding the financing of the Party of Socialists.”

The opinion of the Venice Commission

In the opinion on the Draft Law on Amending the Law on Superior Council of Magistracy, published on January 22, the Venice Commission welcomed the proposal to increase the members of the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) from 12 to 15, as well as the fact that its composition will also be represented by lower courts. “The proposal to increase the number of the members of the SCM from twelve to fifteen may be positive as the functions of the Council concerning evaluation, management, discipline and accountability of judges can be qualitatively strengthened with a broader and more representative composition,” is stated in the opinion report.

It also noted that Parliament is welcomed to appoint the five members of the SCM, with the vote of the majority of elected members, and a stronger majority should include the opposition, which should be also considered in the context of preparing constitutional changes. “The election of non-judge members by Parliament with the vote of the “majority of the elected deputies”, assuming that it is constitutional, is welcome, as a positive step towards a larger support of the candidates by Parliament. A stronger majority would be more appropriate because it would involve the opposition too: this should at any rate be examined in the context of the constitutional reform in preparation.” On the other hand, the Venice Commission recommended the Moldovan authorities to consider other solutions, such as vesting outside bodies that are not under government control (the law faculties that could propose candidates or establishing an independent, non-political commission in this regard).

However, the Commission stated that it is regrettable that the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova did not wait for the present opinion before the adoption at the second and final reading of the draft law amending Law no. 947/1996 on SCM on 20 December 2019, nor before submitting it to the President for promulgation.

The next day, the members of the Cabinet of Ministers approved the bill regarding the amendment of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, in aspects related to the activity of judges, the Superior Council of Magistracy and provisions that would allow the president of the country to directly appoint judges. More details here.

The CoE working group’s recommendation

The experts of the Council of Europe recommended to the Government of the Republic of Moldova, during an official visit in January 2019, to ensure a real process of public discussions of the draft law on the evaluation of judges with all the interested parties, including the judiciary and civil society representatives. Only afterwards, the project can be submitted to the Venice Commission for expertise.

The CoE representatives mentioned that it would be unacceptable to speed up the drafting process only to be able to submit it for examination to the Venice Commission during the March plenary session. It was recommended to submit the draft law on the evaluation of judges rather at the June 2020 plenary session.

Report on justice

In 2018, Moldova allocated for judiciary EUR 14.3 per inhabitant, that was 4.5 times smaller than the Council of Europe (CoE) average, as it was reported by the Legal Resources Centre from Moldova. The budget allocated for justice (courts, legal aid and prosecutor’s office) accounted for 1.3% of the entire public expenditures.

Moldova still remains among the countries with the lowest salaries for judges and prosecutors. In 2018, the entry-level salary paid to Moldovan judges and prosecutors was five times smaller than the CoE average.

Also, the same report concluded that Moldovans go to court considerably less frequently than the CoE average, when considering the number of registered commercial, administrative and criminal cases per 100 inhabitants.

In Moldova, the examination of a case lasts 259 days on average, as compared to the CoE average, which is 735 days. Moldova is one of the countries with the fastest justice system, that meaning a lower quality of justice, as confirmed by numerous cases lost by Moldova at the
European Court of Human Rights.

Photo: Shutterstock/image