Marina Tauber loses parliamentary immunity

Marina Tauber, an MP of SOR Political Party, lost parliamentary immunity. Parliament responded to the request of the Acting Prosecutor General, Ion Munteanu, to deprive the MP of immunity in order to arrest and send the criminal case to court. Three applications were considered in the MP’s absence. One of the demands accuses MP of falsifying accounting reports of the Balti mayor election campaign in 2021. “According to a preset plan, during the campaign before election held on November 21, 2021, she received 9.752 million lei from an organized criminal group, where 740 thousand lei was falsely identified as donations from 104 individuals who did not actually donate this amount,” the Acting Prosecutor General said at the Parliament plenary session. According to prosecutors, SOR Political Party invested more than 9 million lei in the electoral campaign between October and November 2021, despite the fact that the Central Electoral Commission imposed a limit of 749 thousand lei for each candidate in the Balti local elections. Two other appeals by the Acting Prosecutor General charge the MP with “violating the financial management by political parties or use of electoral funds”, namely the paragraph providing for “intentional acceptance by a political party, initiative group or electoral competitor of funding from an organized criminal group”. The MP is also accused of knowingly accepting funding from an organized criminal group by a political party, an initiative group or an electoral competitor, including from July 13, 2022 to May 1, 2023. Marina Tauber, staying under home confinement, did not appear at the meeting, and the Sor Party faction had previously announced that it would boycott the plenary meetings. In this regard, Vice-Chairman of the Board on Law, Assignments and Immunities, Veronica Rosca, said that Marina Tauber, together with her lawyers, was present at the board session on Thursday. At the same time, prosecutors noted that the MP was informed about permission to leave the house to participate in a parliament session. The draft resolution was approved by the votes of 59 PAS MPs. The faction of the Communist and Socialist Bloc did not vote. The MP, cited in a press release from the party, the deputy noted that the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office to lift her parliamentary immunity, as well as the sanctions imposed by the European Union, convince her that she is on the right track, she is “proud, and this makes her to be even stronger in the struggle for the independence, sovereignty and statehood of Moldova”.