Ensuring Transparency: Consultation for Prosecutor General Selection
The regulation concerning the conduction of the competition for selecting the Prosecutor General will be consulted with experts from the European Commission.
This announcement was made by Dumitru Obadă, the president of the Superior Council of Prosecutors, who stated that the document has already been drafted and includes several modifications. The primary provision mandates that members of the SCP must justify the score assigned to each candidate for the position of Prosecutor General. Failure to provide reasoned justification could result in the exclusion of the unexplained grade, with the average being calculated from the scores of the other members.
Furthermore, Dumitru Obadă, the president of the Superior Council of Prosecutors, highlighted another amendment introduced: the public display of the score sheet with the scores given by the SCP members for each candidate. These new measures aim to prevent past instances of unjustified downgrading of candidates and to enhance transparency.
"To prevent similar situations in the future, the law specifies: provide the grade, justify it, both in writing and during the deliberations. If a council member fails to justify why they assign a particular grade, the council members could, by the vote of the absolute majority, exclude the unexplained score and calculate the average from the grades of the other SCP members," stated Dumitru Obadă.
Moreover, Obadă announced that once they receive approval from the European Commission for the new regulation, a new competition will be announced for the selection of the Prosecutor General.
"We maintain constant dialogue with the European Commission. We aim to announce the competition as soon as possible, at the beginning of April, so that, by the end of May, we will have concluded this competition and transmitted the candidacy to the vetting commission," added Obadă.
Previously, the Superior Council of Prosecutors made two attempts to select a Prosecutor General with full powers. The first endeavour failed because only two candidates applied. Subsequently, a new competition was organised, with six candidates applying, and the winner was Octavian Iachimovschi, the deputy chief of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. However, Iachimovschi did not assume the position of Prosecutor General because the competition was cancelled on the grounds that one of the candidates, Ion Munteanu, was unjustifiably downgraded by one of the SCP members.
The position of Prosecutor General has remained vacant since September of last year when the suspended Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo was dismissed from office by a presidential decree.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
