On 23 May 2013, the Promo-LEX Association and the Association for an Efficient and Responsible Governance (AGER) launched in a news conference the Quarterly Report No.1 on the Monitoring of the Implementation of the Justice Sector Reform Strategy.

The monitoring focused on two main components: assessment of the implementation of the activities contained in the Action Plan for the implementation of the Justice Sector Reform Strategy, and trial monitoring. The Report analyzed two categories of actions/activities, and namely: actions dues for completion in the 1st quarter of 2013, and actions overdue since 2012.

“Overall, the activities of the seven working groups established to monitor the implementation of the Action Plan were assessed as productive. Although the number of sessions varied from one WG to another, during the first quarter of 2013, most meetings were deliberative in the sense that they were attended by representatives of most of the institutions entitled to vote. However, Working Group 5 registered a case in which the hearing was postponed due to a lack of quorum,” Olesea Stamate, director of the Association for an Efficient and Responsible Governance, explained.

“The documents produced in the Justice Sector Reform Strategy (JSRS) are indisputably important. At the same time, we found that only a small part of the developed studies were posted on the website of the Ministry of Justice, in the Justice Sector Reform compartment. In this sense, we suggest that all documents developed as part of the implementation of the Strategy be posted to the reform sub-page of the website of the Ministry of Justice,” added Olesea Stamate.

The Report’s findings point to the fact that some actions had been formulated unclearly, which caused various interpretations by the parties involved in their implementation and, as a result, they remained partially completed or deemed unfulfilled. Moreover, some experts suggest dismissing some actions as inappropriate; these include developing a Regulation on the execution of ECtHR judgments or the need for various studies when the respective institution already conducted analyses and made relevant proposals pending only the amendment of certain legal provisions.

“Probably the best cooperation was observed in strategic direction “Improving the System of State Guaranteed Legal Aid”. Moreover, this area has received substantial and continuous support from donors, and the planned actions were executed in time or with deviations that did not essentially affect the activity plan,” concluded Alexandru Postica, lawyer for the Promo-LEX.

A general recommendation is that the page devoted to Justice Sector Reform be updated so as to include all publications developed in the context of implementing the Action Plan. Otherwise, unless (s)he participates in the relevant working group meetings, an interested person has no way of knowing who prepared a certain study and where one can find it.

This report was prepared within the project “Monitoring Justice Sector Reform for Increased Government’s Accountability”, implemented by the Promo-LEX Association and the Association for an Efficient and Responsible Governance (AGER), with the financial support of the European Union.

The Report is available here.

For more details, please contact: Olga Manole, Project Coordonator
Tel: (22) 449626, e-mail: [email protected]