INTEGRITY DOUBTS REGARDING THE MEMBERS OF THE PRE-VETTING COMMISSION The Commission did not comment at all on the APO concerns that “there are indications that the pre-vetting procedure has been com­promised and vitiated by criminal groups associated with Veaceslav Platon and Ilan Shor and that the fundamental rights of candidates to a fair trial have possibly been affected, which together pose a risk of jeopardizing the justice system further”. Likewise, the Commission left without attention the accusation that“a prosecutor with links to Ilan Shor passed the pre-vetting procedure with the participation of Tatiana Raducanu in the Pre-Vetting Commission, got to the SCP, and manipulated and vitiated the competition for the position of PG of the Republic of Moldova”. Therefore, even this time, the Pre-Vetting Commission was not concerned by the scandal related to the alleged lack of integrity of one of the members of the Commission and did not publicly explain why for two days it did not meet urgently to decide on the application of the integrity mechanism provided by law in case it was later found that a member did not meet the requirement of irreproachable reputation at the time of appointment, and the subsequent finding out of these circumstances discredited and caused doubts about the objectivity of the decisions of the Pre­Vetting Commission. 8.3 Low duration of integrity of some members of the SCM and SCP, positively assessed by the Commission Integrity incidents of some members of the SCM and SCP, previ­ously positively assessed by the Commission, have also indirectly affected the reputation and credibility of the Commission’s work. In one case, the SCM member Iulian Muntean, who successfully passed the pre-vetting procedure, 202 was found to be involved in a criminal corruption case. The evaluation methodology of this candidate was different from that of other candidates, and the Pre-Vetting Commission failed to request information about him from the prosecutor’s office. The NAC presented the Commission with false information that the person had no status in corruption cases. In reality, the candidate was accused in such a case. The APO has opened a criminal investigation to determine which NAC employees lied to the Pre-Vetting Commission by providing erroneous information. The APO announced that one of the em­ployees of the Secretariat of the Pre-Vetting Commission had pre­viously participated in the criminal investigation of that candidate by the NAC and therefore could have informed the Commission. The SCM member accused of corruption has resigned. Parliament and Presidency officials threw the blame entire­ly on the APO, which made public the error in the Pre-Vetting Commission’s evaluation of Iulian Muntean’s integrity. The member of the Secretariat of the Pre-Vetting Commission who allegedly withheld information about the candidate’s crim­inal record and who may have been involved in the deviation from the Commission’s methodology of gathering information was promoted by the Parliament to the position of member of the Vetting Commission for the evaluation of SCJ judges. 203 CASE STUDY 27. The SCM member Iulian Muntean, two weeks between appointment and resignation with scandal, corruption allegations, APO’s investigations on incomplete information provided to the Pre-Vetting Commission and the politicians’ attack on prosecutors Realitatea.md, 20 September 2023,‘EXCLUSIVE! Newly appointed member of the SCM who passed the pre-vetting, accused in a cor­ruption case’ 204 “Iulian Muntean, the newly appointed member of the Supreme Council of Magistracy, having been delegated by the Parliament, is an accused in a cor­ruption case. The case is a high-profile one, dating back to 2018, when several employees of the Academy of Economic Studies(ASEM) were detained for al­legedly taking bribes. In a response submitted to the Realitatea, the APO has announced that on 5 June 2018, searches were carried out at the home and in the car of Iulian Muntean. On 3 September 2018, being a lecturer at the Academy of Economic Studies, jointly with other persons, he allegedly evaluated students with high marks in several subjects and received financial means in exchange.“A judg­ment on the accused Iulian Munteanu, at the moment, is not adopted. The criminal case in which Iulian Munteanu is accused is being investigated the NAC’s criminal investigation body, and the criminal investigation is ongoing,” the APO informed.[...] In 2018, the NAC raided six teachers and three intermediaries who favoured students in exams, practice and thesis. The sums claimed for such“services” amounted to€550. Iulian Muntean is part of the second group of non-judicial candidates nomi­nated by the Parliament for the SCM in May 2023. He was heard by the Pre-Vet­ting Commission in the context of the process of assessing the financial and ethical integrity of the SCM candidates.[...]” Vetting.md, 21 September 2023,‘Press statement[of the Pre-Vet­ting Commission]’ 205 “In the context of the information[...] concerning Iulian Muntean, a candidate for the position of member of the SCM, who passed the extraordinary evalua­tion on 14 August 2023, and was appointed by the Parliament in the SCM on 7 September 2023, in the sense that he is allegedly accused in a criminal cor­ruption investigation dating back to 2019, the Pre-Vetting Commission comes with the following clarifications: Throughout the evaluation process, the Commission has not been informed of any criminal investigations or proceedings against Iulian Muntean. In order to assess the financial and ethical integrity of candidates, the Com­mission, by law, collects data from numerous public and private sources, in­cluding, for example, from the NAC and the SIS. In none of the information provided to the Commission was any reference made to any criminal investi­gation of the candidate or to the candidate’s status as an accused in criminal proceedings. The fact that Iulian Muntean was on the list of candidates for the SCM was public knowledge. Thus, nothing prevented the APO or other public institu­tions and individuals from informing the Commission during the evaluation process about ongoing proceedings in which the candidate was allegedly in­volved. As of 21 September 2023, the APO has not provided any information in this regard.[...] 202 https://vetting.md/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Decizie-MUNTEAN.pdf 203 https://moldova.europalibera.org/a/cine-sunt-membrii-comisiei-care-va-verifica-averile-si-interesele-judecatorilor-csj/32460321.html 204 https://realitatea.md/exclusiv-membru-proaspat-numit-la-csm-si-trecut-de-pre-vetting-invinuit-intr-un-dosar-de-coruptie/ 205 https://vetting.md/declaratie-de-presa/ 71