Justice on Demand?

Sergiu CEBAN

When the authorities launched the external evaluation of judges and prosecutors in 2021 – the so-called “vetting” – it was presented as a historic milestone. For the first time in three decades of independence, the justice system was supposed to undergo a genuine “reset” and “clean-up”. Five years later, however, the overall picture looks far less straightforward: the procedure remains unfinished, deadlines keep being postponed, scandals follow one after another, and citizens still do not trust either judges or prosecutors

Judicial reform in the country actually began back in 2019 under the government of Maia Sandu. Its core idea was a large-scale assessment of the integrity and professional ethics of judges and prosecutors fashionably referred to in international terms as “vetting”. Specially established commissions were tasked with examining the financial standing, lifestyle, and career decisions of hundreds of representatives of the judicial system and delivering a verdict on whether each individual “sacerdote di Temi” deserved to remain in office. By 2025, three vetting commissions had completed their work, and the figures cited by the Ministry of Justice appear impressive at first glance. Of the 287 judges and prosecutors who underwent evaluation, 103 received a positive result, 93 failed the review, and 91 chose to resign or withdraw their mandates before a final decision was issued. At first glance, it might seem that the “vetting sieve” is working. Yet the original deadline of December 31, 2025 was quietly pushed back by another year. The main reasons cited included a lack of resources within the commissions’ secretariats, insufficient cooperation between state institutions, and delays caused by those undergoing evaluation. Notably, the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime had not even been submitted for review by the time the initial deadline expired. Considering that the evaluation of a single individual takes about six months on average, the realistic timeline for completing the entire process appears to stretch somewhere beyond the horizon. Moreover, last week the reform once again found itself at the center of a scandal that exposed a contradiction long brewing within the mechanism itself. The issue concerns how the parliamentary majority of the PAS party hastily, literally overnight, amended legislation to lower the required threshold for appointing members of the vetting commissions from 61 votes to a simple majority. The immediate reason was the desire to retain Hermann von Hebel, the former chair of the Pre-Vetting Commission whose mandate ended in February 2026, within the Prosecutors’ Evaluation Commission. The problem is that von Hebel’s own reputation is far from spotless. In March 2024, journalists reported that the Dutch lawyer had withdrawn his candidacy for a new five-year mandate as Registrar of the International Criminal Court in The Hague amid a scandal surrounding the ReVision reform he had overseen. Nevertheless, the current authorities deemed him an appropriate figure for a key role in Moldova’s vetting of prosecutors and, mobilizing all their influence, pushed through the necessary political decision. Attempting to justify the ruling party’s questionable maneuvers, parliamentary speaker Igor Grosu explained the urgency by arguing that the reform had already dragged on for too long and that the new amendments were necessary to “unlock” the process. Maia Sandu expressed a similar position, adding that the authorities could not afford to stall the reform simply because they lacked the 61 votes previously required. The opposition responded sharply, announcing its intention to challenge the PAS amendment in the Constitutional Court, arguing that it was politically motivated and violated the principle of consensus in forming vetting commissions. At the same time, tensions between the presidential administration and the judiciary are escalating. In January, a group of Moldovan judges did something that in any normal country would have long been grounds for the resignation of a high-ranking official – they publicly accused the head of state of exerting pressure. The association Voice of Justice stated that Sandu’s public demands to accelerate, expand, and “correct” the reform, along with threats to extend vetting to the legal profession, resembled political interference incompatible with the Constitution and the standards of the Council of Europe. The reaction was predictable. Sandu responded by saying that the system was resisting change and that she had no intention of accommodating such resistance. This stance is a convenient one, as it allows any professional objection to be stigmatized as the “resistance of a corrupt system”, thereby drowning out criticism directed at the president. Yet the judges’ objections concern not the substance of the reform but the method of its implementation. When the president publicly tells judges how they should work and what the authorities expect from them, it appears as blatant pressure. At that point, it no longer matters how noble the declared goals may be, because in a democratic state the judiciary must remain independent under all circumstances. There is also another side to the president’s proclaimed determination to eradicate corruption in the domestic justice system. In each vetting commission, two out of the three Moldovan legal experts are appointed by the ruling majority, while only one is nominated by the opposition. In a situation where PAS simultaneously controls both parliament and the presidency, the answer to whether vetting is a tool for cleansing the system or a mechanism of political management becomes fairly obvious. One of the most painful side effects of the reform has been the mass departure of experienced professionals from the system. In the appellate courts alone, after the announcement of vetting, between half and two-thirds of the judges resigned. Of the 40 judges at the Chisinau Court of Appeal, 21 stepped down; in the Balti Court of Appeal, 12 out of 17 judges resigned. The authorities have tried to respond to the staffing crisis by raising salaries, yet financial incentives cannot solve the growing structural problems caused by the mass departure of seasoned lawyers who spent decades working within the system. Training new specialists in just a few years is simply impossible. So, what do we actually have after five years of judicial reform, presented by the authorities as the main achievement of their rule? The sector faces a severe staff deficit, the judicial community accuses the president of pressure, and citizens still do not believe that corruption in the courts has decreased. In essence, there are no tangible results, except for a hollowed-out system in which experienced lawyers have been replaced by loyal figures and procedural safeguards have been adjusted to serve immediate political objectives. Maia Sandu certainly knows how to speak eloquently about the rule of law, because such rhetoric helps create the impression among Western partners that progress is being made. Yet the real architecture of justice is being built according to a logic that has little to do with the triumph of legality. For many experts, one thing is clear: as long as the reform serves the authorities, it is not truly a reform but merely an extension of their power. In a broader context, another factor is worth noting. Moldova is currently at an important historical juncture after launching technical negotiations last year on the first three clusters of accession talks with the European Union. Among them are the so-called “fundamentals”, including the rule of law and judicial independence. Brussels is watching developments very closely, and the overnight legislative maneuvers by PAS are likely to reinforce the impression among officials in the European Commission that Moldova is still only at the very beginning of its European path and is just starting to learn how to build genuinely democratic institutions.