The Regulations of the SCM on the Impersonalisation of Judgments Challenged by Legal Professionals and Magistrates

Media Azi wrote on Monday, 6^th of February, about the concerns expressed by certain investigative journalists and media consumers in relation with the Regulations of the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) on the new way to publish the court judgments on the joint court website. This issue is still in the sight of the public and it has been criticised by certain magistrates at the SCM meeting held on Tuesday, 7^th of February.

In accordance with the SCM Regulations, the names of the participants in the trial shall not be indicated in court judgments published on instante.justice.md website. The Regulations also provide that “the judicial assistant has the obligation: if necessary, to impersonalise the court judgment”

In the opinion of the investigative journalists Alina Radu and Cornelia Cozonac, these Regulations are “an unprecedented step backwards in the history of the transparency in the Republic of Moldova”. The lawyer Tatiana Puiu, while requested by Media Azi to comment on the new provisions, stated that it is an arbitrary decision of the SCM and that such a practice is not shared by the international organisations. “The European Court of Human Rights publishes in its HUDOC database the full name of the complainants, or the date of birth, or the place of residence”, Tatiana Puiu pointed out.

The impersonalisation of court judgments was subject to discussions at the SCM meeting held on Tuesday, 7^th of February. bizlaw.md website quotes the remark made at the meeting by the President of the Supreme Court of Justice, Mihai Poalelungi. “The Regulations need to be reviewed. The legislation is transgressed and the so-called rules on the protection of personal data are extensively interpreted. The attitude in terms of impersonalisation is wrongful. They do not write any name, nothing. The Supreme Court of Justice will publish the judgements on its website, just as they were published before, regardless of the Agency’s decision (note - the Agency for Court Administration) or of the Ministry of Justice. Why isn’t the publication of the European Court’s judgements deemed as an infringement of the human rights, but in Moldova it is? When you file a lawsuit and enter the public space, you should take this responsibility”, the President of the Supreme Court of Justice stated.

According to bizlaw.md, the SCM members decided to conduct a joint meeting with the Ministry of Justice and the Agency for Court Administration, and invite the representatives of the National Centre for the Protection of Personal Data. Subsequently, at its next meeting, the SCM will propose solutions.

The legal experts from Promo-LEX Association made public on Wednesday, 8^th of February, their legal opinion that “the Ministry of Justice and the Agency for Court Administration extensively interpret the provisions of the Law no. 133 on the protection of personal data and the allegations that the publication of the name and surname is a violation of the rights of the persons involved in a trial are erroneous”.

Promo-LEX stated that “there is no legal ground for not publishing on the court websites the information containing the name, the surname of the persons involved in a trial”. Moreover, the legal experts from this association point out that several laws – “The Criminal Procedure Code (Article18), the Civil Procedure Code (Article 23), the Law on the Judicial Organisation, Paragraph 9 of the Regulations for the publication of court judgments on the joint court website provide for the principle of publicness of proceedings”.

A petition called “We want the search option using the name and the surname to be included in the search engine of the court website in the Republic of Moldova” has recently been posted on the Internet and has already gathered over one hundred signatures.