Foreign citizens with problems with law to no longer be able to avoid extradition from Moldova

Chisinau, 31 July /MOLDPRES/ - The foreign citizens who have committed infringements of the law will no longer be able to use legal ways to avoid the extradition from Moldova and evade the criminal liability. The MPs today approved legislative amendments meant to settle the problems detected within the assessment of the procedures of extradition with the involvement of the asylum procedures. Seventy one MPs voted for the draft law in the second reading.    

The legislative initiative belongs to a group of lawmakers of the faction of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS). The authors say that, at present, the terms of  holding under arrest of people for extradition and the terms envisaged for the issuance of an irrevocable decision on the applications for asylum do not comply. For his reason, it is important to ensure the holding of the extraditable person under arrest till his/her delivery to the requesting state and the offenders take advantage of this.    

In the context, the MPs propose to increase from 180 days to 12 months the maximal term of holding the person under preventive arrest for extradition. Also, the Law on asylum in Moldova will be completed with a new category of applications, which must be examined in quick procedure. It is about the applications of the people against whom the procedure of extradition was initiated. Thus, the term of examination of the applications on asylum submitted by these people will be shortened.    

Also, the authors propose the change of the terms of consideration of the ways of appeal of the ruling issued by courts on the contestations against the decisions by the General Inspectorate for Migration. Respectively, the decision on turning down the application on asylum will be able to be appealed by way of administrative disputed matters, without preliminary procedure, on a period of five working days after the date of communication. The court’s ruling on the maintenance or cancellation of the decision on rejecting the application on asylum will be able to be appealed at the Court of Appeal and the ruling of this court will not be able to be appealed and will be irrevocable. It is worth mentioning that only the terms concerning the applications on asylum examined by the General Inspectorate for Migration in quick procedure will be changed.   

The amendments will enter into force ion the date of their publication in the Official Journal.

In mid-July Prime Minister Dorin Recean asked to urgently change the normative framework on asylum in Moldova. The demand was made, after a Turkish citizen had been shot dead in the Moldovan capital. At that time, the PM said that certain foreign citizens under international wanted list took advantage of the ‘’breaches’’ in the system, in order to stay at large in Moldova.