THE UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES OF THE PRE-VETTING COMMISSION sic comforts of life: food, clothing, a place to live, however modest, a means of transportation, even if not a luxury one, the possibility to rest, however mod­est, etc. The concept of the“financial independence of a judge” is worth much more than the“subsistence minimum”. The position of the Independent Evaluation Commission that the State of the Republic of Moldova, through its salary policy, is not able to provide a judge, even if he/she is on childcare leave, with a“subsistence minimum”, not to men­tion a decent living, is equal to a finding that the Republic of Moldova is a bankrupt state. Clearly, the special panel cannot accept this approach and, in its view, it is completely unfair to require a judge to justify that the payments provided by the State are sufficient to ensure a”subsistence minimum”. It is common sense to accept as a matter of principle that the payments provided by the State to the judge are sufficient to ensure at least a“subsistence mini­mum”, without requiring that the judge prove anything else. The special panel accepts that, when, in addition to what is absolutely neces­sary for life(food, clothing, etc.), a judge also acquires other utilities(goods, services), it is justified to take into account that“subsistence minimum” in the presumptive calculation of expenses, according to the formula:‘”subsistence minimum”+ utilities, in order to be able to verify whether the payments from the State justify the judge’s expenses. However, in a situation where there is no evidence that the judge had any expenses other than the bare necessities, and in the case of Marina Rusu the contrary has not been established, in the opin­ion of the special panel it is unfair to subject the judge to the absolutely ungra­cious state of trying to prove that her way of life allows her to provide for her­self from the payments provided by the State. In the light of the above, the special panel notes that Marina Rusu, although she was in a rather embarrassing situation, tried to justify her income during the period when she was on childcare leave. She even referred to the childcare allowance, and to the salary her husband received during the reference pe­riod, which, although quite modest, was in any case a surplus to the social se­curity payments granted by the State.” The procedure for evaluating the candidates before the Pre­Vetting Commission sometimes involved public humiliation of their relatives. CASE STUDY 35. Parents of the candidate Ion Chirtoaca, unofficial work abroad of the parents to support their son during his studies considered a serious doubt concerning the lack of integrity of the son In conditions of widespread poverty in the Republic of Moldova, the vast majority of citizens are helped to survive by relatives who work abroad. Judge Ion Chirtoaca, a candidate for the position of member of the SCM, failed the evaluation because he was assisted by his parents, who have been working abroad for many years and for a number of years worked outside of formalized employment relationships. The candidate is the only child and his parents went to Italy to support him as a minor and later as a student. Having no other way to prove that his parents worked for the money on which he was helped to survive, the candidate requested a hearing of his parents by the Pre-Vetting Commission. The candidate was visibly emotional when asked to question the parents in front of the Com­mission, barely holding back tears, apologizing that he never expected that he would ever have to question his own parents. When the Commis­sion members questioned the candidate’s parents, the candidate looked visibly ashamed and humiliated that his parents had to answer questions about the money they had earned in Italy, transferred to their only son to help sustain himself. Public hearing of parents of the CSM candidate Ion Chirtoaca, 14 March 2024 238 The Chair of the Pre-Vetting Commission, Herman von Hebel, asked the candidate’s mother a question about the persons, Moldovan and Ital­ian citizens, who had made statements before an Italian notary about the work done by the candidate’s mother and father in Italy when they worked outside an official employment contract. The question was about how the candidate’s mother met the persons who made those state­ments, which were previously submitted to the Commission and which the Commission did not find convincing. Minute 01:46-01:51:“We used to go to the park when we were free. There was a lot of longing there. You missed your language, the lan­guage you speak. And there were a lot of carers there. When we were free, we would meet and talk to each other. And we got to know each other. We were from Romania and Moldova. I wanted to speak mostly in my own language. I really missed that. When I was in the country, I worked at school, I spoke six hours a day, but in Italy I felt my vocal cords closing up. I spoke, I communicated very little in Italy. The old lady I was working with could understand almost nothing. She was sick. So much so that I had to work with her, she couldn’t be left alone for long. For a while it was possible, but then my husband would come and there were other people, and she couldn’t be left alone at all. In their houses you can’t solve the problem the way you want. In their houses we put our heads down. We were grateful to the Italian people. Thanks to them we changed our material life. They understood me quite well, even with this pre-vetting situation. They gave me information and even recog­nized me in front of the notary. They fear the law too. And you can’t, you understand; the person got you out of need, took you into his home, and then you go and report on him. That’s not humane. The law was made on the basis of humanity. We have to recognize these things. Something’s coming from inside, that you shouldn’t do wrong. Evil is done at any moment. But we have to keep on doing good. When we are wrong – we are wrong, when we are not wrong – we are not wrong. We have to admit it in front of God.[...] Each one of us there told our story: this is what we left at home; this is our re­lationship with our family, our husband, our children. There were women cry­ing. They sent money to the children and with money they did nothing, they did other things. I was happy when I came home after three years and eight months. When I left for Italy, he[ my son] was in the first year of his studies at the Police Academy and when I came and saw that he was studying and do­ing well, I was happy. All we wanted was to bring up our children properly. We thought about it and we had... it gave me a lot of satisfaction, and that satis­faction gave me the strength to work harder and I saw that I was not working for nothing. There is also when you work and there are no results – you get dis­couraged and you can’t work. But I was encouraged by my son, I was working as I could see it was worthwhile.” Unimedia.md, 15 March 2024,“This is unacceptable!” The Voice of Justice Association, worried after the hearing of the parents of Ion Chirtoaca:“A dangerous precedent for the future of justice” 239 “The Association of Judges‘Voice of Justice’ expresses its“deep concern about the abuses found during the evaluation procedure of candidates for the SCM”. “In particular, we refer to the recent hearing by the Pre-Vetting Commission of the parents of magistrate Ion Chirtoaca, regarding the source of their income for a period of more than 20 years ago, during the magistrate’s studies,” reads a statement made public. “We believe that this type of investigation, which extends over such a long pe­riod of time and involves family members of a candidate, is ethically and le­gally unacceptable. In a democratic and human rights-respecting society, judges and candidates for high positions in the judiciary should be evaluated on the basis of their professional merits, integrity, and competence, not on the basis of the actions or alleged actions of their relatives. These practices only undermine the independence and integrity of the judici­ary and set a dangerous precedent for the future of justice in our country. We call on the competent authorities to respect the principles of the rule of law and to ensure that the evaluation process of candidates is fair, transparent, and equitable.” 238 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaYwpDcrg5k 239 https://unimedia.info/ro/news/63dc89e9dbdd6ba5/este-inacceptabil-asociatia-vocea-justitiei-ingrijorata-dupa-audierea-parintilor-lui-ion-chirtoa­ca-un-precedent-periculos-pentru-viitorul-justitiei.html?utm_source=Site%20Widgets&utm_medium=Trend%20News%20Widget&utm_cam­paign=Trend%20News%20Widget 85