Recent media reports have stated that Iulian Muntean, a candidate for the Superior Council of Magistracy who passed the pre-vetting evaluation on 14 August 2023 and was appointed by Parliament to the Superior Council of Magistracy on 7 September 2023, has been the defendant in criminal proceedings involving corruption since 2019. The Independent Evaluation Commission for assessing the integrity of candidates for the position of member in the self-administration bodies of judges and prosecutors (“Commission”) hereby provides the following information:At no time during the evaluation process was the Commission made aware of any criminal complaints, investigations or proceedings involving Iulian Muntean.
The Commission collects information from numerous sources in order to assess the candidate’s financial and ethical integrity, including e.g. the National Anti-Corruption Center and the Security and Intelligence Service of Moldova. In information provided to the Commission no reference has been made to criminal investigations or charges regarding the candidate.
It was publicly known that Iulian Muntean was on the list of candidates for the Superior Council of Magistracy. Nothing prevented the National Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office or any other public institution or private individual from informing the Commission at that time of pending proceedings involving the candidate. The Anti-Corruption Prosecution Office did not release the information on pending proceedings until 21 September 2023.
Every candidate is asked to voluntarily submit responses to an ethics questionnaire as part of the evaluation process, which includes the question whether the candidate has ever been a party to any civil, contravention or criminal cases. In his response to the Commission, Iulian Muntean did not disclose any criminal proceedings against him.
In addition, in none of the open sources relating to candidate was the Commission able to find any information regarding the outstanding criminal charges against the candidate were identified.
Because no criminal proceedings involving Iulian Muntean were reported to the Commission during his evaluation, any pending criminal matter was not considered by the Commission in its evaluation of the candidate.
The Commission will be contacting the responsible authorities regarding the apparent failure to report pending proceedings to the Commission to determine why the Commission was not notified of any pending criminal proceedings involving Iulian Muntean. The National Anti-Corruption Center has already provided information to the Commission.
