The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday condemned Moldova in an unusual case where an environmental agent had been dismissed for having received as a bribe… a chainsaw, the Court considering that the proceedings against him had not been fair.
Ivan Cavca, a Moldovan national born in 1988, was a civil servant at the Environmental Protection Inspectorate. In May 2020 he was dismissed for disciplinary misconduct after accepting a chainsaw as a bribe, in a complaint for illegal felling of trees which had been brought to his attention.
The applicant lodged an appeal against his dismissal in which he claimed to have been entrapped and incited to commit the offense by an undercover agent, as part of a random assessment of the professional integrity of officials in his department. His appeal was unsuccessful.
Invoking before the ECHR Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, relating to the right to a fair trial, Mr. Cavca maintained that the Moldovan courts seized had not examined his allegation of ambush.
The pan-European body, which sits in Strasbourg, granted his request. “The Court considers that the domestic courts did not fulfill their obligation to examine the entrapment argument effectively and to ensure that the procedure was fair,” she said.
The ECHR notes “inappropriate reasoning” by the judges of the Chisinau court, and points to other procedural anomalies: the applicant could therefore not appeal the court decision against him, “a possibility open only to other parties”.
The Court therefore concludes that Moldova has violated Article 6 of the Convention.
“The finding of a violation constitutes in itself sufficient just satisfaction for the moral damage suffered by Mr. Cavca and the respondent State must pay him 1,375 euros for costs,” she concludes.
Related News :