allmoldova | allfun | alltravel | alllady | alllife | contest | allmaps | promo
Home / Moldova's news / Society

Moldova's news

CC resolution on Ghimpu decree published in official governmental newspaper

23 july 2010, 16:14 print out copy link The link has been copied to the Clipboard

On Friday, the Monitorul Oficial governmental paper published the full text of the Constitutional Court Resolution, which recognized as non-constitutional the Presidential Decree issued last June 24 by Acting President Mihai Ghimpu on declaring June 28, 1940 as a Day of Soviet occupation.  

The Constitutional Court wrote that by signing such Decree, Acting President Mihai Ghimpu [a lawyer by his university diploma] had violated 7 articles in the Constitution. For instance, the CC said the acting head of state exceeded his office and ignored the constitutional principle of the division of powers in a state. 

Furthermore, the Constitutional Court declined Ghimpu’s arguments that in previous years, too, the head of state adopted analogous Decrees, for example ones on introducing professional holidays. Ghimpu referred to the Constitutional Court Resolution of January 24, 1996 recognizing as constitutional the presidential decrees on establishing the annual professional holidays of border-guards, banking sector workers, inventors, financiers, and customs officers.     

"The Constitutional Court reckons that the January 24, 1996 Resolution is irrelevant here. There exists an essential difference between the introduction of a professional holiday and institutionalization of a day of memory of individual historic events that have a principal historic background and that are perceived differently by civil society members", said the CC Resolution.  

The CC also wrote that in the Resolution of 1996 the Constitutional Court ruled that the President is eligible to institutionalize only professional holidays by force of presidential decrees, and no other remarkable dates.   

Besides, the CC highlighted the different legal statuses the President had in 1995 and has in 2010:  fifteen years ago, Moldova was a presidential republic, and presently – a parliamentary republic.     

"In a presidential republic, president is elected by the people, so from the legal point of view, the head of state stands at the same level as parliament, and he is equipped with broad plenary powers given to him by the whole nation, whole people. In a parliamentary republic, the head of state is usually elected by parliament, due to which circumstance the status of the head of state is lower, and he is subordinate to the parliament", said the CC Resolution.   

The Court also ruled that the president has no right to adopt decrees on questions that constitute the subject of an act being disputed. The president performs its function of the guarantor of the country’s sovereignty, national independence, unity and territorial integrity, and must be driven by the constitutional norms fixing the president’s plenary powers and by the acts of a supreme representational organ in fields concerned. So, if the president’s opinion goes contrary to his plenary powers stipulated by the Constitution and corresponding laws, then the president must consult the nation, in particular – by means of a referendum.   

The Constitutional Court pointed out that the Ghimpu decree touched on questions of the state’s foreign policy, in particular he demanded from Russia to withdraw its troops and arsenals from Moldova’s territory. The CC referred to Article 86 in the Constitution stipulating the powers of the head of state in the foreign political sphere. Namely, the president holds negotiations, signs treaties and presents them to parliament for ratification, accredits and revokes Moldovan diplomats, institutionalizes, cancels or revises the rank of diplomatic missions, accepts and revokes credentials from foreign ambassadors in Moldova.  

The Constitutional Court has thus recognized the Ghimpu decree as non-constitutional, and recommended the Parliament to eliminate this bottleneck in the legislation so as to consolidate the letter and the spirit of the Main Law.  

The CC underlined from the very beginning it would not be giving a political or historic assessment of events from the country’s past, and would focus exclusively on legal questions. This position, however, was not shared by CC Judge Victor Puscas, who presented his dissenting opinion, which was also published in the Monitorul Oficial today. He agreed with the Resolution’s enacting clause, but presumes it was unfounded to reject the political-legal substantiation, which he believes could only consolidate the CC arguments presented in the Resolution.         

Puscas wrote, in particular, that the Ghimpu decree generates a whole number of problems related to the country’s territorial integrity. He thinks the Constitutional Court should have subjected to a political-legal analysis the historic period, which was presented in the Ghimpu decree as a period of Soviet occupation.  

Furthermore, Victor Puscas wrote that an acting president has no plenary powers entrusted to him by either the people or parliament.  

"For the period of a temporary performing of presidential functions, an acting president should abstain from executing certain plenary powers, particularly those that are not caused by an urgent, vital necessity for the society. Thus, the acting president ad interim must have abode by his civil and moral duty and should not have interfered into disputable and uncertain questions while at the post temporarily", wrote Victor Puscas.    

Infotag
Get Adobe Flash player

Moldova's news - Society

Friday, 10 february, 2012

Thursday, 9 february, 2012

Wednesday, 8 february, 2012

Tuesday, 7 february, 2012

Monday, 6 february, 2012

Saturday, 4 february, 2012

Friday, 3 february, 2012

Thursday, 2 february, 2012

Wednesday, 1 february, 2012

Tuesday, 31 january, 2012

Archive:

Interview
Alexandru Tanase: Authorities' reaction to Constitutional Court judgments points to maturity of rule of law

Interview
Vladimir Golovatiuc: Price growth in Moldova is mostly provoked by inflation expectations

Whether the provided information is trustworthy or not it is the exclusive responsibility of its source. Using this website, you commit youself to the terms and conditions of this agreement

Company profile If you have questions regarding how allmoldova works, please write us: support@allmoldova.com

Project partners: