Moldovan National Anticorruption Centre works out study on practice of combating illegal occupation of grounds
10:49 | 21.08.2021 Category: Social
Chisinau, 21 August /MOLDPRES/ - The Analytical Department of the National Anticorruption Centre (CNA) has worked out a study analyzing the practice of documenting and combating the illegal occupation of lands through the light of enforcement of the provisions of the Article 116 of the Contravention Code. Thus, more corruption risks appeared, beginning with the competences of the institutions in charge of combating this phenomenon, which are contradictory and ending with the tendentious judicial practice in this field.
Under the Study, one of the first problems identified consist in the competences of the two entities in charge of the documentation and settlement of cases of illegal seizing of public lands – Local Public Administration (APL) and the Inspectorate for Environmental Protection (IPM). On the one hand, APL is the authority which finds out a good deal of the cases of illegal occupation of public lands and the official reports on contraventions are compiled, according to the competence, by IMP. Thus, IPM does not have full information on the concerned lands, which triggers the admitting of errors at the level of cases’ consideration. The passing of the responsibility between the two institutions and, respectively, the non-settlement of cases in the state’s interests comes from here.
“More exactly, the analysis of concrete cases showed a string of infringements admitted by the two institutions. Thus, in some cases, APL employees included incomplete information in damage inspection reports, relying only on the documents received, did not undertake additional measures for verifying the information and for strengthening the evidence. Therefore, the courts were not able to impose the proper sanctions because of inconsistencies between the content of official reports and the actual situation,’’ CNA said.
The Study’s authors say that the failure to accumulate the evidence fully and conclusively, the failure of the official examiner to come to court sessions, the compilation of official reports with the imposing of only the fine, without demanding the insuring measure of demolition, although this is necessary, are the principal risks of corruption which eventually lead to the ceasing of the contravention suits and encouraging of the illegal occupation of public lands.
photo: CNA