Volume 7 Number 3

Summer 1998

Constitution Watch
     A country-by-country update on constitutional politics in Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR

Moldova
     On May 21, by a vote of 59 to 36, the Parlamentul (Parliament) approved a new cabinet headed by Ion Ciubuc (independent). The cabinet includes members of the rightist Democratic Convention of Moldova (DCM), the Party of Democratic Forces (PDF), and the centrist Bloc for a Democratic and Prosperous Moldova (BDPM). These three parties formed Moldova’s first coalition government, the Alliance for Democracy and Reform (ADR). Ministerial portfolios were apportioned according to a “2+2+1” formula, which was spelled out in the ADR cooperation agreement, with BDPM and DCM each receiving two ministries to PDF’s one. (See Moldova Update, EECR, Vol. 7, No. 2, Spring 1998.)

     DCM received two deputy prime ministerships in return for agreeing to support BDPM in nominating both the prime minister, Ciubic, and the speaker of Parliament, Dumitru Diacov (BDPM). Valentin Dol-ganiuc is the deputy prime minister for industrial and agricultural policy; Nicolae Andronic, deputy prime minister of legal affairs. DCM also holds the ministries of foreign affairs, interior, territorial development, communal services and construction, industry and trade, labor, social protection and family, national security, and environmental protection.

     BDPM secured one deputy prime ministership and the ministries of agriculture, the food industry and forestry, defense, culture, finance, and health. In an effort to push for key, economic reforms, BDPM was keen to control the economy and finance portfolios and to nominate young reformers to these posts. Ion Sturza, the 37-year-old minister of economy and reforms and deputy prime minister, headed a successful food-processing company. The new minister of finance, 36-year-old Anatol Arapu, was the ambassador to Belgium and the European Union and also worked at the World Bank. The junior member of the ADR coalition, PDF, holds one deputy prime ministership and the ministries of education and science, justice, and transportation and communications.

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     On May 21, Ciubuc unveiled the cabinet’s working program, warning that urgent structural reforms were needed to rescue Moldova from economic crisis. Just before the election in March, then–minister of finance Valeriu Chitan made clear that the final state of the 1997 budget, which had failed to generate sufficient revenues to chip away at Moldova’s massive internal and external debts, “should be regarded as a crisis—as bankruptcy.” The new government stopped short of embracing a shock-therapy model of economic reform but promised to adopt drastic measures. On July 9, Parliament approved cabinet-proposed changes to the state budget that aim to cut public spending and reduce the deficit to zero. In the first half of 1998, Moldovan authorities were able to collect only 55 percent of mandated taxes. The Law on Amending the 1998 State Budget has introduced several changes designed to make tax collection more effective. The Office of Tax Inspection, the Financial Guards, and a division of the Economic Police will be united into the Department of Revenues. Value-added tax exemptions for favored sectors are revoked and import duties and excise taxes for gas and other products raised. Trade unions have strongly criticized the law’s reduction of benefits (such as free public transportation) to state employees, war veterans, and other social groups. Article 131 of the Constitution requires the government to issue an annual draft of the national budget to Parliament for approval; no budget expenditure may be approved without first identifying a corresponding funding source already approved by the legislature.

     For the 1998–2001 period, the Ciubuc government officially predicts GDP growth of 3–5 percent, a 7–9 percent inflation rate, a 30 percent decrease in unemployment, and a reduction in the budget deficit to 3.5 percent of GDP. Experts doubt that the government will be able to achieve these results, which would certainly require Parliament to adopt great tomes of legislation—including an administrative-procedure code, a law on ownership, and a competition law. While the cabinet claims that it intends to privatize the state monopolies of electricity, telecommunications, gas, and railroad, its first priorities are the payment of long-overdue pensions and wages. Wage arrears come to 125 million lei ($27.2 million). Although this sum comprises only 1.4 percent of the 1997 GDP, almost half of all state employees have not received their salaries for months. Even the new deputies in the Parliament have yet to see their first paychecks, since taking office.

     Parliament continues to struggle with an acute energy crisis. Moldova is totally dependent on Russia and Ukraine for oil, natural gas, and coal imports. Energy imports account for approximately 50 percent of Moldova’s foreign debt, which reached 58 percent of the GDP last year. (See Moldova Update, EECR, Vol. 6, No. 4, Fall 1997). The state-controlled energy sector remains unable to pay its debt to Russian and Ukrainian energy suppliers. In June, Chisinau went without electricity for several hours after the Ukrainian government cut power for lack of payment. Gazprom also warned Moldovan authorities that energy supplies could be reduced by 50 percent if arrears were not paid by August 1. Moldova has paid Gazprom for only 51 percent of its imports in 1998 and owes $590 million.

     On June 18, the Court of Audit delivered its annual report to Parliament on the “administration of the country’s material and financial resources in the public sector.” According to Art. 133 of the Constitution, “the Court of Audit supervises the means of creating, administering, and utilizing public financial resources . . . and submits annually to Parliament a report on the administration and utilization of public financial resources.” The report claims that fraud and corruption permeate the upper levels of Moldovan state structures. Quick to exploit the report for political purposes, Prime Minister Ciubuc lauded the Court of Audit’s findings, stating that “public property is stolen in large portions, while the thieves and robbers are moving from one chair to the other, from one ministry to the other. In the end, nobody is punished.” The vice-chairman of the Court of Audit, Gheorghe Isopescu, complained that only a handful of the 38 reports presented to the prosecutor general’s office led to indictments, let alone convictions. Prosecutor General Dumitru Postovan responded with his own complaint—that his office has limited ability to pursue such cases. He added that the prosecutor general’s office struggles with poorly trained personnel. Critics answered that funding shortfalls could not explain the selectivity with which crimes are prosecuted in Moldova. If the right person places “one phone call [to the prosecutor general’s office],” complains Isopescu, “the law is bypassed.”

     On July 2, Postovan tendered his resignation. According to Art. 125.1 of the Constitution, the prosecutor general is nominated for a five-year term by Parliament at the speaker’s proposal. A close friend of the former prime minister, Andrei Sangheli, Postovan was seen as one of the last remnants of the previous regime. Postovan’s successor remains to appointed.

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     During the last months, the Constitutional Court examined two important petitions. Adrian Usatii and Dumitru Turcanu, who had been directors of Teleradio-Moldova, challenged the previous Parliament’s decision to dismiss them. Ostensibly, Usatii and Turcanu were fired for violating the constitutional guarantee of free access to information (Art. 34) and the Law on Audiovisual Media (Art. 7), by showing “tendentiousness and a lack of professionalism.” Usatii claimed that he was fired for backing Petru Lucinschi in the last presidential elections and for his involvement in the formation of the Civic Alliance for Reforms, a centrist movement supporting economic reforms. Pro-Lucinschi deputies also charged that the dismissals were politically motivated. (See Moldova Update, EECR, Vol. 6, No. 4, Fall 1997.)

     The two men, however, found themselves trapped in a judicial deadlock that may or may not resolve itself. The lower courts refused to consider their dispute with Parliament on the grounds that it was not a typical labor conflict, since the respondent (that is, Parliament) was not an ordinary legal entity. The courts reasoned that the ordinary courts did not have the authority to make rulings affecting Parliament within the framework of labor legislation. The petitioners then appealed to the Constitutional Court. According to Art. 135.1 of the Constitution, the Court may pass judgment on, among other things, the regulations and orders of Parliament. In its decision in early June, the Constitutional Court decided that Usatii and Turcanu have the right to seek judicial redress under the Labor Code.

     On another front, on July 2, the Court rejected a petition submitted by MP Victor Stepaniuc (Com-munist Party of Moldova), who had argued that the formation of an ADR government contravened Art. 82.1 of the Constitution. Article 82.1 states that “on consultation with the parliamentary majority, the president will designate a candidate for the office of prime minister and will make use of the vote of confidence given him by Parliament to nominate the government.” Stepaniuc claimed that, by forming the government, ADR violated the Constitution because the party was created only after the elections and thus was not a parliamentary majority.

     Stepaniuc further argued that, according to Art. 82.1, “parliamentary majority” means 50 percent plus one of all elected deputies. The party that was asked to form the government, DCM, won only 40 of the legislature’s 101 seats. The Court ruled that the term “parliamentary majority” is “political not mathematic” and that coalitions may be formed after elections.

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     At a meeting of the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe, on July 7, which was dedicated to discussing problems in Moldova, MP Vlad Cubreacov (DCM) presented a declaration on the relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and Trans-Dniester. Cubreacov argued that the Patriarchate’s decision of September 1995 to appoint Viktor Ovcinnikov as special bishop for the region demonstrates that “Russia has a religious and economic, not only military and political, presence in the eastern regions of Moldova.” Ovcinnikov is not a Moldovan citizen and has no mandate from Moldovan authorities to perform religious activities in Trans-Dniester, as is required by the Moldovan Law on Religious Affiliation of 1992.

     Cubreacov also pushed for the European Court of Human Rights to consider the status of the Bessarabian Metropoly’s petition of July 3 against the Moldovan state. The court has not set a specific date for review. Last year, the Ciubuc government refused to recognize the Metropoly on the grounds that no territory called Bessarabia currently exists. Historically, Bessarabia, which comprised most of present-day Moldova, was annexed by Turkey, Russia, and Romania. After WW II, it was incorporated into the Soviet Union and became the Socialist Republic of Moldova. Although Art. 31 of the Constitution protects religious freedom (“freedom of religion is guaranteed . . . religious faiths are autonomous with respect to the state and benefit of its support”), Moldovan legislation still requires denominations to seek government recognition, recognition the government is currently withholding.

     The issues are political and religious. The Bessarabian Metropoly, claiming to represent most ethnic Moldovans, is subordinated to the Romanian Orthodox Church, while the All-Moldova Orthodox Church, the only orthodox church officially recognized in Moldova, is subordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate. Most ethnic Moldovans belong to the Bessarabian Metropoly. A majority of the ethnic Ukrainians and Russians in Moldova proper (excluding Trans-Dniester) belong to the All-Moldova Orthodox Church. Ciubuc claimed that, because it is associated with the Romanian Orthodox Church, recognizing the Metropoly could be interpreted as a step toward rapprochement with Romania—a sensitive point. Ciubic’s campaign promises included pledges to seek compromise among ethnic groups and to preserve the republic’s independence vis-à-vis Romania. Both Ciubuc and Lucinschi agree that one orthodox church in Moldova is enough and that church should remain the All-Moldova Orthodox Church.

     In mid-May, the 29-member Popular Assembly of Gagauzia unanimously adopted the region’s main law, the Gagauz Code. The code’s 9 sections and 101 articles outline the region’s constitutional system, rights and freedoms of citizens, and the plenary powers of the Gagauzi legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Gagauzia has autonomous status and, therefore, its own official languages (Romanian, Moldovan, Russian, and Gagauz), parliament, judiciary, and administrative organs, as well as representatives in the Moldovan Parliament in Chisinau.

     Article 111 of the Constitution stipulates that “the places on the left bank of the Nistru river [Trans-Dniester], as well as certain other places in the south of the Republic of Moldova [Gagauzia] may be granted special forms of autonomy according to special statutory provisions of organic law.” Article 2 of the Law on the Judicial Status of Gagauzia of December 23, 1994, reads: “Gagauzia is administered on the basis of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, of this law and other laws of the Republic of Moldova (with some exceptions), [and] the Gagauz statutes and normative decisions of the Gagauz Popular Assembly that do not contradict the Moldovan Constitution and legislation.” Article 12.6 of the same law stipulates that “Gagauz normative acts that run counter to the Moldovan Constitution and the present law are declared null.”

     Gagauzia is not the only area raising questions regarding regional autonomy and territorial cohesion. The deadline for the collecting of signatures for Trans-Dniester’s bid to join the Belarus–Russia Union, originally set for May 15, was extended by two weeks to achieve the “maximal results.” Public organizations that initiated the bid are supported by Trans-Dniester’s self-declared government, which claims that the aim of this effort is to secure observer status within the Belarus– Russia Union’s parliamentary assembly. On June 1, according to unofficial results, 64.8 percent of those voting supported joining the union. But the Moldovan, Ukrainian, and Russian presidents condemned this action. Moreover, at the end of June, Russia formally reconfirmed its position that the Transnistrian crisis must be solved in a manner that respects Moldova’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. On March 20, the then–prime minister of Russia, Viktor Chernomyrdin, and Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov met in Odessa to sign a protocol on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Trans-Dniester. President Petru Lucinschi attended the meeting but did not sign the document.

     While Gaugazia has autonomous status, the situation with Trans-Dniester is more complicated. By law, Trans-Dniester is part of Moldova, yet the Moldovan government has no control over the territory. For example, the central Moldovan government cannot collect taxes in the region or organize elections. In the recent parliamentary elections, separatists prevented Transnistrian voters from casting ballots by refusing to allow 22 buses carrying voters to cross the frontier into government-controlled territory. (See Moldova Update, EECR, Vol. 7, No. 2, Spring 1998.) In late 1995, Trans-Dniester passed its own basic law. Many Transnistrians consider themselves members of an independent and sovereign state, with its own constitution, central bank, parliament, secret police, currency (the USSR ruble), border guards, army, and president.

     In recent months, Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov has been hospitalized for extended periods of time, and his absence often has led to serious decision-making problems for local authorities. As a consequence, one group of deputies demanded constitutional changes that would transform the region into a parliamentary republic and curtail presidential powers. In their view, the executive and presidential powers should be divided, with the post of prime minister introduced into the power structure. Currently, Smirnov, as president of the unrecognized Moldovan Transnistrian Republic, heads the region’s executive power as well. All current governmental work is coordinated by the deputy prime minister, but final governmental decisions rest with the president. In response, Smirnov has argued that Trans-Dniester should be a presidential republic. In the end, the Supreme Soviet of the region did not approve any constitutional changes.

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