Moldova recognized the political party “Shor” as unconstitutional

The Constitutional Court of Moldova recognized the political party “Shor” as unconstitutional. The party is considered disbanded from the day the decision was made. None of her documents will have legal force anymore.

The Chairman of the Constitutional Court, Nicolae Roshka, said that the Ministry of Justice of Moldova will create a commission to liquidate the party and exclude it from the register of legal entities.

At the same time, the deputies from the “Shor” party will retain their mandates in the parliament, but will act as independent elected officials.

The Government of Moldova appealed to the Constitutional Court with a request to verify the legality of “Shor” last November. According to the government, the party’s activity falls under Article 41 of the country’s constitution, according to which parties and public-political associations whose activities are directed “against political pluralism, the principles of the rule of law, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity” are considered unconstitutional.

The legal representative of the government stated that during the trial there was sufficient evidence that “Shor” was engaged in organizing mass protests with bribing participants to destabilize the situation in the country.

Representatives of the “Shor” party insisted that the evidence did not confirm anything, and called the accusations politically motivated. After the announcement of the verdict of the court, the deputy head of “Shora” Maryna Tauber called the decision of the Constitutional Court “disgraceful and unprecedented”. “We are the first country in Europe where an opposition political party has been disbanded. We cannot compare ourselves to the extremist actions in Turkey and Bulgaria, which have been an example to us here,” she said.

• The Shor party was founded by Moldovan oligarch and politician Ilan Shor in 2016 on the basis of the social and political movement “Ravnopravie”. The modern government of Moldova considers it pro-Russian, although Shor himself denies this.
• In 2017, in Moldova, Shor was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in connection with the theft of a billion dollars from three Moldovan banks. When the sentence was appealed and the case was considered in the appellate court, Shor was able to leave for Israel. On April 13 of this year, the Appeals Chamber of Chisinau sentenced Ilan Shor to 15 years of imprisonment in absentia. Shor said that this was “revenge for the protests” that his party held in Chisinau.