DOMNICA MANOLE ELECTED AS NEW CONSTITUTIONAL COURT CHAIRPERSON

At its session that ended on Thursday evening¸ the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova dismissed its Chairperson Vladimir Turcan and elected Domnica Manole, ex-Judge of the Chisinau Appeals Court, to the high post.

“At the yesterday’s session, CC Judges Nicolae Rosca and Liuba Sova raised the question of dismissing Chairman Turcan. By a majority of Members, the Court took that decision, after which it elected Judge Domnica Manole as Constitutional Court Chairperson for a 3-year term of office”, said the CC press release.

Analysts are pointing out that the CC Chairperson change took place against the background of the high-profile decision the Court had passed on April 13, when its recognized as non-constitutional the Law on measures to support businesses and the population in the current crisis conditions, approved earlier by the Government under its own responsibility. Vladimir Turcan did not participate in that CC sitting. Also, he refused to take part in the voting on that day, having explained then that the media were already commenting adversely his stance on that question.

Those comments appeared after President Igor Dodon had told a briefing that he had held in mid-April a telephone talk with the Constitutional Court Chairman, who briefed the head of state on some details of the case. Political analysts and the opposition perceived that telephone talk as the President’s interference into the administration of justice. All that eventually led to Turcan’s resignation.

Infotag's dossier: On April 14, 2016 CAC Judge Domnica Manole met the inquiry of an initiative group for the organization of a nationwide referendum on amending the Constitution. She cancelled the decision taken by the Central Election Commission on March 30 to deny the holding of such a referendum and compelled the CEC to initiate the referendum. However, her decision was cancelled by the Supreme Court of Justice [3rd instance], which left in force the decision taken by a first-instance court. The CEC addressed to the Prosecutor General’s Office claiming that Judge Manole had committed a serious breach of law. After a certain pause, Domnica Manole was deprived of her status of a judge by Supreme Court decision taken on the basis of information raised by the Information and Security Service, which wrote in its conclusion that “there were risk factors in Judge Manole’s activities”. In December 2017, the Constitutional Court recognized Manole’s dismissal as unlawful and anti-constitutional. Despite that, in February 2018 the Superior Council of Magistrates rejected as “unfounded” Domnica Manole’s application with a demand to re-establish her in her position of a CAC judge.

At the February 24, 2019 parliamentary election, Domnica Manole was running on the bloc ACUM’s slate, but lost the polls in a single-member constituency.