By unanimous vote, the Supreme Court of Justice rejected as unfounded the lawsuit filed by suspended judge Garri Bivol against the Superior Council of Magistracy. The magistrate, who is on trial for influence peddling, requested the annulment of the SCM Plenum’s decision from November 2023, which granted permission for criminal proceedings to be initiated against him. Garri Bivol is currently suspended from his position. In 2023, searches were carried out in his office and in the offices of three other judges. Bivol is also charged in a separate case, in which he has the status of a defendant for complicity.

In March this year, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office sent to court, for trial on the merits, the criminal case for influence peddling opened against Garri Bivol and lawyer Iurie Podarilov, former head of the General Police Inspectorate.

The criminal case was initiated in October 2023 by the General Prosecutor’s Office, with jurisdiction later transferred to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.

“According to information obtained during the investigations, in October 2023, the judge allegedly told the lawyer that he had influence over a fellow judge and could persuade him to issue a favorable decision on a motion filed by the lawyer on behalf of his client. In order to exercise the promised influence, the judge allegedly received an unspecified amount of money from the lawyer, which was said to have been handed over in the judge’s office,” prosecutors stated.

The defendants did not admit guilt, and the case was forwarded for trial on the merits to the Chișinău Court, Buiucani branch.

For the committed offense, the law provides for a penalty of a fine ranging from 150,000 to 200,000 lei or imprisonment for a term of 2 to 7 years, with disqualification from holding certain positions or engaging in certain activities.

The Center for Investigative Journalism revealed, in an extensive investigation, the circumstances under which judges — including Garri Bivol — issued orders for debt collection in the high-profile Laundromat case. Journalists discovered that the judges issued rulings based on photocopies of documents issued by foreign authorities, without those documents being authenticated.

The portal Anticoruptie.md also reported that the state is to pay moral damages amounting to 3,526,000 lei to eight other judges who were removed from criminal prosecution in another case.

Iurie Podarilov was detained on February 24, 2017, based on a denunciation, and spent 13 months in Penitentiary No. 13. In 2018, Podarilov was sentenced to four years of imprisonment. In 2019, he was released following a ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice, which sent the case back for retrial. On June 17, 2021, the Supreme Court of Justice issued a final acquittal.

In July 2019, during a meeting of the Investigative Journalists’ Club, Podarilov described how the criminal case against him was fabricated, leading to his conviction and more than a year in detention.

In February 2022, Podarilov resigned on his own initiative from the position of head of the General Police Inspectorate. He was replaced by Viorel Cernăuțeanu. This happened about a year after his appointment by the then Minister of Internal Affairs, Ana Revenco.