Moldovan MPs vote tougher fines for electoral corruption

Chisinau, 19 December /MOLDPRES/ - Fifty seven lawmakers today voted a string of legislative amendments, in the first reading, aimed at combating the electoral corruption.   

The document was elaborated following a request received on behalf of the Constitutional Court, which asked for the improvement of the current legal mechanisms.

Respectively, a group of MPs from the faction of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), in cooperation with the Justice Ministry, elaborated a draft law which contains including proposals of authorities with powers in the field of combating the electoral corruption.  

Thus, the people who will be involved in the electoral corruption, while acting in the interest of an organized crime ring or a criminal organization, will run the risk of getting fines worth from 67,500 lei to 92,500 lei or to be imprisoned for a term of 4-7 years. In case of legal entities, the fine will be up to 550,000 lei, with the deprivation of the right to exercise a certain activity for a period of up to five years or with the liquidation of the legal entity.  

In case of the forging of the results of the voting, committed in the interest of an organized crime ring or of a criminal organization, the criminal sanction imposed will be a fine worth up to 92,500 lei or imprisonment for a term from 3 to 7 years. As for the legal entities, the fine will be worth from 350,000 to 450,000 lei, with the deprivation of the right to exercise a certain activity for a period of up to five years or with the liquidation of the legal entity.  

The law also proposes amendments to the Contravention Code. People will be fined also for the video registration of the ballot paper, not only its photographing.  

At the same time, people who will collect signatures, without being authorized, will be sanctioned with fines worth up to 4,500 lei. The carrying out of the electoral agitation by non-commercial organizations, trade unions, employers, representatives of religious cults or their component parts, carried out including in cult dwellings, during the electoral campaign, will be sanctioned tougher too.  

The authors also propose a string of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, aimed at optimizing the examination of the causes which regard the corruption offence. Prosecutors will be able to appeal and verify the approaches of causes’ connecting or attraction of more sides to the action at law at the sides’ request, which once admitted, lead to the increase in the volume of evidence and of the cause and, respectively, to the delay in the judicial examination.   

Also, the draft law suggests legislative amendments, in order to avoid the continuous postponings in the court sessions and the delay in the examination of causes, for the reason of absence of a lawyer of the defendant.  

Last week, public hearings were held at the parliament on the frauds detected at the parliamentary elections and at the constitutional referendum. At that time, the heads of the competent institutions proposed including a string of legislative amendments to combat the electoral corruption phenomenon.