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IJC Report // Journalistic contribution to initiation of investigation in corruption cases

04 October 2021
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The National Anticorruption Center (NAC) examined over a dozen cases of corruption after the media published investigation reports about illegal activities committed in 2020. The data were provided to the Independent Journalism Center within the “Journalistic access to information of public interest: from letter of the law to power abuse” research meant to reveal how governmental institutions fulfil their obligation of responding to information requests.

IJC experts sent information requests to a total of 31 providers, six of which were addressed to justice authorities: General Prosecutor’s Office (GPO), National Anticorruption Center (NAC), National Integrity Authority (NIA), National Penitentiary Authority (NPA), General Police Inspectorate (GPI) and Rascani Court of Chisinau.

NAC’s reply to IJC suggests that, from 1 January 2020 until 1 July 2021, the authority examined 13 corruption cases after journalists published investigation reports and articles revealing illegal activities. GPO representative said that “prosecutors, as a rule, react to journalistic investigation materials which appear in the public space giving reasonable grounds to suspect a crime”. Still, given the “lack of clear evidence in this sense”, GPO could not provide the exact figures.

At the same time, experts have also analyzed the number of information requests examined by justice authorities within the period of 1 January 2020 – 1 July 2021. Most requests were reported by NAC (1,050), followed by GPO (657), GPI (579), NPA (454) and NIA (350).

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