The President, representatives of the leadership of the Supreme Council and the Government of the PMR, the Prosecutor of the PMR, the Chairman of the Supreme Court of the PMR attended the meeting on the results of the activities of the Constitutional Court of the PMR in 2018.
Oleg Kabaloyev, Chairman of the Constitutional Court of the PMR, noted that for the first time the court is summing up the results with the President. He recalled that each year the Constitutional Court submits a message on the state of constitutional legality in the republic, which includes summary information on the activities of the court.
18 complaints and appeals from citizens and the Supreme Council of the PMR were received by the Constitutional Court for consideration last year, Oleg Kabaloyev said. The speaker drew attention of the meeting participants to noticeable decrease in the number of requests from government bodies. If in 2016 there were 33, then in 2018 only 2. The Chairman of the court gave a positive assessment of this trend.
Oleg Kabaloev said that last year a new institute of constitutional justice was introduced into the legal system of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic - the revision of the decisions of the Constitutional Court. Such a mechanism operates in Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Republic of Moldova, the chairman of the court added. As a result of the practical implementation of the innovation, two decisions of the Constitutional Court were canceled. One of them concerns the place of the prosecutor's office in the system of state authorities (today it does not belong to any of the three branches). The prosecutor’s office also returned its direct functions, in particular, maintaining the state prosecution in court, Oleg Kabaloyev reminded.
Another resolution ruled that the law did not comply with the Constitution by limiting the right of citizens to receive unemployment benefits, enshrined in the Law of the PMR “On the budget of the Unified State Social Insurance Fund for 2018”. The head of the Constitutional Court noted that, in accordance with the norm of the law, a mandatory condition for receiving unemployment benefits is the participation of a citizen in socially beneficial activities on a gratuitous basis for four days every month. In case of refusal, the allowance is not paid to the citizen, Oleg Kabaloev stated, recalling that the month in which the unemployed did not take part in socially beneficial activities does not count in his total work experience. Having considered the complaint in which this problem was raised, the Constitutional Court concluded that the contested norm does not comply with the Constitution of the PMR, Oleg Kabaloyev said.
The Chairman of the Constitutional Court said that work was continued to improve the current legislation on constitutional legal proceedings in 2018. According to him, the analysis of the judicial practice of the Constitutional Court of the PMR and the relevant legislation of the Russian Federation indicate that there is a need to make a number of amendments to the Constitutional Law of the PMR "On the Constitutional Court of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic". The amendments are aimed at increasing the efficiency of the court in terms of the protection of the constitutional rights and freedoms of a person and citizen.
International cooperation is another area of activity of the Constitutional Court of the PMR. Oleg Kabaloev spoke about the interaction with the newly created Constitutional Court of the Republic of Abkhazia. Pridnestrovian experts share with their Abkhaz counterparts the experience of constitutional legal proceedings accumulated over 17 years of work.
During the discussion of the results of the work of the Constitutional Court, the participants in the meeting spoke of the need to more actively use constitutional legal proceedings as an instrument for the protection of rights and freedoms. According to the Prosecutor of the PMR Anatoly Guretsky, in particular, the practice of appealing decisions on the imposition of administrative responsibility can be made more accessible in the constitutional plane. The fact that the principle of the presumption of innocence is practically not applied in administrative court proceedings was also mentioned by the President. “As in criminal law, this principle should work administratively, so that when citizens impose administrative responsibility, they have the right to appeal the decision of a particular authority. Everything should not be changed immediately, but it is necessary to simplify the appeal mechanism,” Vadim Krasnoselsky said.
The President took a favourable view of the introduction of the institute for reviewing decisions of the Constitutional Court.
Vadim Krasnoselsky gave a satisfactory assessment of the work of the Constitutional Court in 2018. He thanked the judges and staff for their professionalism and wished them further success in ensuring constitutional legality in the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.