The majority of citizens of the Republic of Moldova believe that the judiciary is politically influenced and that their wealth, profession or political affiliation counts when going to court. This is a conclusion drawn by the Legal Resources Centre from Moldova (LRCM) in a recent study where statistical data from several sources was analysed.

The general trend evolution from 2008 to 2019 shows that the public confidence in justice has continuously decreased since 2010. It is interesting to observe that trust in justice increased around elections and change of governments (2009 and 2019), while it decreased considerably after elections. The minimum share of people who said they trusted the Moldovan justice was registered as a consequence of the political crises from 2015-2016 and the billion theft from the banking system, which was publicly revealed in 2014.

According to the LRCM study, six years after the start of judicial reforms in 2011, trust in justice became lower than at the beginning, suggesting that the reforms did not have the expected result.

The 2019 data displayed a situation where about half of the surveyed citizens believed that the judiciary from Moldova treats litigants equally, regardless of gender and age. At the same time, only about a third of respondents believed that judiciary treats people equally regardless of position, political affiliation or wealth.

60% of respondents were not sure that judges could do them justice.

Another survey conducted by the LCRM in 2018, implying lawyers’ perception of independence, efficiency and responsibility of the judiciary from Moldova, revealed that only 29% of lawyers considered that the law applies equally to all litigants. Only 17% of lawyers regarded judges as being independent and 35% of them believed that judges’ decisions were fair and adopted without outside influence.

When asked where the influence on judiciary is exercised from, lawyers from Moldova said that judges’ decisions are mostly influenced by politicians (90.7%), prosecutors (83.9%), other judges (68.2%) and the Superior Council of Magistracy (65.1%).

The Republic of Moldova demonstrated a medium adherence to the rule of law, according to the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index 2020 report. The index exhibits a portrait of the rule of law in 126 countries by providing scores and rankings based on eight factors: constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice, and criminal justice.

Countries’ scores and rankings are derived from more than 120 000 household surveys and 3 800 expert surveys in the analysed countries and jurisdictions, this index being the world’s most comprehensive data set of its kind, measuring countries’ adherence to the rule of law from the perspective of ordinary people and their experiences.

In 2020, the Republic of Moldova has reached an overall score of 0.5 for the Rule of Law Index, recording an improvement of 2.2% as compared to 2019. The score is calculated on a scale from 0 (the minimum score) to 1 (the maximum score). Therefore, Moldova globally ranked 82 out of 126 countries (it ranked 83 in 2019).

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