Statutory relations among the military to the attention of the media

Chişinău, December 4th, 2012 — In 2012, there was a 32% decrease of the number of misdemeanors in the National Army in comparison with the previous year. In the future, we intend to continue our efforts directed towards the diminution or even the total disappearance of abuses in the military institution. The statement was made by the Minister of Defense Vitalie Marinuta in a press briefing entitled “Statutory relations among the military.”

According to the Minister of Defense, law and military regulations must be dominating in the military, this is why the institution promotes a policy of intolerance towards any abuse, analyzing and reporting all the cases to the military prosecution and cover-up attempts are punished severely, in accordance with the law. “Soldiers come to military for training, for learning how to defend their homeland, but not to be humiliated and the mothers who send their children to the military must be entrusted that they are in good hands”, Vitalie Marinuta specified.

Although this year the number of crimes has decreased, the minister of defense has ordered the formation of a commission to examine in detail the status of military discipline in all garrisons. For a greater transparency, this commission will include not only representatives of the Ministry of Defense, but also representatives of the Military Prosecution, NGOs and the academic environment of the country, such as lecturers from the Faculty of Psychology of the Free International University of Moldova, the associations “Promo-LEX”, “Mothers of soldiers’” parliamentary Advocates, NGO specialized in studying the issue of human rights. “In the second half of January the commission will present its report within a round table and come up with concrete proposals to improve the situation in this area,” Minister of Defense mentioned.

According to the information of the Main Staff of the National Army, in 11 months of this year, the courts have issued 16 conviction sentences of the military. Thus, four military were sentenced to actual execution of the sentence of imprisonment for terms ranging from six months up to three years and six months, and nine soldiers were sentenced to prison, but with its conditional suspension. Two of the military were sanctioned with a fine and one of them with community work.

The cited source stated that in other 15 criminal cases the criminal prosecution was ceased in the basis of art. 55 of PC that provides release of criminal responsibility with conventional accountability, applying fines contravention, and a criminal case was closed in the basis of art. 109 PC which provides reconciliation.