President on Constitutional Court’s Decision: Belated but Necessary

The head of state welcomed the Constitutional Court's decision made last week, calling it "belated but necessary." Igor Dodon noted that one of the important elements of the judges' verdict is that the president cannot be removed from office for 5 minutes, and his powers cannot be transferred to the speaker or prime minister, as was the case during Plahotniuc's time, aif.md reported “Even in this hall, I have stated many times that actions done in 2016-2018 were illegal - when the president of the country, at the Constitutional Court decisions, was temporarily removed from office so that someone could sign decrees in his stead. Now this question has finally come to an end. Why belated? Because the Venice Commission announced this back in June-July last year,” he said. The second important element of the decision is the procedure for nominating a candidate for the post of prime minister. Dodon noted that the Constitutional Court stressed that the candidate should be proposed by the formed parliamentary majority. "What does this mean? According to the current legislation, the creation of a parliamentary majority is announced at a parliament meeting. These are not the signatures of 51 deputies in someone's cabinet for the post of prime minister candidate. A session of the parliament is convened, but I believe that in this parliament there can be practically no such majority formed at a session of parliament without our participation. In addition, the Constitutional Court noted that if the president does not accept this candidacy, the constitutional procedure begins. What does this mean? 67 deputies must vote to remove the president, and in this parliament there is not a single chance for this. But even if this happens, then within 30 days, a referendum should take place and the number of voters for president's resignation should exceed minimum one person out of the quantity that voted 4 years ago when he was elected - that is, 836 thousand people, which is also impossible in this situation. I approve of the CC's decision. It is belated, but necessary,” Igor Dodon concluded.