These data were released at the International Conference of the Union of Advocates in Chisinau. In August, this professional association conducted a survey among colleagues, in which about 4% of practicing professionals (with 5 to 20 years of experience) participated.
Against this background, lawyers once again opposed the scandalous amendments to the Law on Advocacy, adopted on July 10. Dorin Popescu, President of the Union of Lawyers, recalled that the lawyers’ protest against this law was a forced measure and is sure that the issue with the law is not closed.
“We have witnessed attempts to limit our professional independence, hasty reforms, pressures that tested the solidarity of the professional corps, labeling and identifying the lawyer with his clients or their cases,” Popescu said.
The abolition of fees for disciplinary complaints would jeopardize the financial sustainability of the bar and open the door to abuse, lawyer Nicoleta Hriplivi said at the conference. In addition to abolishing the fees, they provide for the inclusion of members appointed by the Ministry of Justice on the Bar’s main commissions, limits on the length of commission members’ mandates, and a three-year hiatus for lawyers who have previously held these positions.
According to the current norms, the fee for filing and examining a complaint with the Commission for Ethics and Discipline is 500 lei, for social assistance beneficiaries – 70 lei, for lawyers themselves on their own behalf – 1500 lei.
“When financial independence is affected, in case of prohibition of procedural fees for disciplinary complaints – not only the mechanisms of functioning of the profession are weakened, but also opens the way to a flow of unfounded complaints that can overburden the institution of the lawyer and even paralyze its activity,” says Hriplivy. – The abolition of the fee, made suddenly, is not only about finances – it is a filter that blocks and cuts off certain abuses of complaints that overload the institution of the bar. Let’s not forget that every member of the bar is a lawyer himself – salaries are not guaranteed by the state, everyone copes as best he can”.
Nikoleta Hriplivy believes that the discussion is not over yet: “I don’t think the topic is over. I am sure that it will be revisited, but I hope very much that this will happen in a different way than it has happened so far.
We shall remind you that Maia Sandu returned the Law on Advocacy for revision, as it “does not offer sufficient solutions to the systemic problems of the advocacy, especially in terms of integrity, transparency, meritocracy and ensuring effective access of citizens to justice.” At the same time, the head of state also drew attention to another aspect of advocacy. “But even more alarming is the fact that the institution of the Bar remains inert with regard to the actions of lawyers who illegally influence court decisions, engage in influence peddling or are even part of criminal groups,” Maya Sandu wrote on her social network page.
However, the fact that the president did not promulgate the law is attributed to the desire to avoid conflict with the bar before the parliamentary elections.
According to the Union of Lawyers, at the beginning of the year there were 2,054 active lawyers and 228 trainee lawyers in Moldova.
