The Pre-Vetting Commission concluded the hearing of the second group of non-judicial candidates, nominated by the Parliament for the position of member in the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM). Eight candidates with professional experience in the field of law or in another relevant field, out of the nine registered in the competition, agreed to participate in the public interview and answered the questions of the Commission members to clarify some aspects relevant to the evaluation process.
Therefore, between July 14-21, the Commission interviewed the candidates Aliona CORCENCO, Veaceslav GUȚAN, Vitalie SÎLI, Lucia POPESCU, Ana TIPA, Iulian MUNTEAN, Leonid CHIRTOACĂ and Nicolae AGACHI, while the candidate Vanu JEREGHI withdrew from the competition during the evaluation process. During the public hearings, the Commission members asked the candidates several rounds of questions, in order to clarify the ambiguities left after the written communication with them.
Among the topics relevant to the evaluation process, touched upon by the members of the Commission at the hearings, there were mainly aspects of financial integrity, such as candidates’ lifestyle, failure to comply with the legal regime for the declaration of assets and personal interests, source of cash savings held by the candidates or their family members, under-estimated sale-purchase prices of assets, as well as non-payment of capital increase tax. The financial and ethical integrity checks covered a period of 15 years and referred to candidates’ closed persons as well. The video recordings from the hearings were published on the website of the Pre-Vetting Commission www.vetting.md and the YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@comisia.prevetting, in accordance with the provisions of Law No. 26/2022 and the Evaluation Rules of the Commission.
In the next period, the Pre-Vetting Commission will work on drafting the decisions on the outcome of the evaluation of those eight non-judicial candidates.
Note: Following the decision of the Legal, Appointments and Immunities Committee of 5 May 2023, the Parliament forwarded to the Pre-Vetting Commission the list of nine non-judicial candidates for Superior Council of Magistrates membership. These include self-employed lawyers, attorneys and representatives of civil society and academia, who similar to the group of candidates among judges went through the Pre-Vetting Commission’s financial and ethical integrity evaluation process in order to become eligible to run for a position of permanent member to the SCM.
