Judges from the Constitutional Court of Moldova take part in experience sharing project at the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia
The Constitutional Court launches the second stage in the experience sharing project with the Constitutional Court of Moldova. President of the Constitutional Court of Moldova Domnica Manole and Judges Nicolae Roșca, Liuba Șova, Serghei Țurcan and Vladimir Țurcan participate in the project.
In the framework of the project, Judges of the Constitutional Court of Moldova will work independently with materials prepared by the Latvian Constitutional Court’s experts and will take part in discussions on relevant constitutional law issues. The experience sharing project will last for five days, during which webinars on the methodology for assessing the legality of a restriction on fundamental rights, the Constitutional Court’s judicature in the area of the right to property and social security, as well as the principle of judges’ independence have been scheduled. The project will be completed at the end of November.
President of the Latvia Constitutional Court Sanita Osipova, opening the webinar of the first project day, noted:
“The standards of fundamental human rights protection are constantly increasing both on the international and the national level, therefore improvement of the qualifications and professional knowledge of Judges and court employees is important. Moreover, global events show that the principles of a democratic state governed by the rule of law and the judicial independence are very fragile, therefore they should be constantly reinforced.”
President of the Constitutional Court of Moldova Domnica Manole, in turn, thanked the Latvian Constitutional Court for openness in implementing experience sharing projects and sharing its experience and knowledge. The President also noted that Judges of the Constitutional Court of Moldova continue applying in their daily work the knowledge acquired in the experience sharing project of 2019.
The webinar of the first project day was dedicated to detailed discussions of the current issues in organising the work of both Courts, focusing, in particular, to the new structure of the Latvian Constitutional Court, functions of the Head of the Administration, and the competence of the Legal Department.
The aim of the project is to advance the professional knowledge of the Judges and lawyers of the Constitutional Court of Moldova and strengthen the Court’s ability to conduct constitutional expert assessment consistently, inter alia, by applying international human rights provisions and case law in examining the legality of restrictions on human rights. During the first stage of the project, nine lawyers of the Constitutional Court of Moldova expanded their knowledge on the role of constitutional courts in a democratic state governed by the rule, organisation of work, admissibility criteria for applications, as well as other relevant issues of constitutional law.
Elīna Podzorova, the Constitutional Court’s Advisor, leads the project and is also involved in it as an expert. Kristaps Tamužs, the Head of the Constitutional Court’s Legal Department, and Alla Spale, an expert of constitutional law, are preparing the study materials for the project and moderate the webinars.
The judges and lawyers of the Constitutional Court of Moldova participated in a project, implemented by the Constitutional Court and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, already in 2019, in the framework of which they gained knowledge about the Latvian model of constitutional review, jurisdiction of the Latvian Constitutional Court and organisation of its work, discussed relevant issues of constitutional law with the Judges and Advisors of the Constitutional Court, as well as studied the methodology used by the Latvian Constitutional Court in reviewing the constitutionality of legal norms.
The experience sharing project is implemented with the financial aid of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia provided under funds of the budget program 07.00.00 “Development projects for cooperation and international aid”.