Monitoring the Policies on Freedom of Assembly in the Republic of Moldova

Monitoring the Policies on Freedom of Assembly in the Republic of Moldova

Monitoring the Policies on Freedom of Assembly in the Republic of Moldova[EN]
Monitoring the Policies on Freedom of Assembly in the Republic of Moldova[EN]
Monitorizarea Politicilor cu privire la Libertatea Întrunirilor în Republica Moldova[RO]
Monitorizarea Politicilor cu privire la Libertatea Întrunirilor în Republica Moldova[RO]
Мониторинг политик в отношении свободы собраний в Республике Молдова[RU]
Мониторинг политик в отношении свободы собраний в Республике Молдова[RU]


Monitoring the Policies on Freedom of Assembly in the Republic of Moldova

                                                                           Prepared: 15th of january 2009

The report was developed on the basis of the project on the monitoring of assemblies, which lasted nine months, conducted by the Resource Centre for Human Rights (CReDO) with technical and financial support of the ODIHR / OSCE. The report is one of the products of the project. Besides the report, the project included over 200 monitoring sessions of assemblies in the entire country. The project team has developed a comprehensive database of all assemblies held during the project, and, more importantly, made it possible to monitor the freedom of assembly locally through a network of over 50 experienced observers.


The monitoring report finds that the new law has brought significant improvements to the exercise of freedom of assembly and was generally well received by organizers, local authorities, and police. The new law has already brought significant benefits to society, organizers and citizens, regulators and police authorities, saved a lot of money, and facilitated the exercise of freedom of assembly, increasing the awareness of the police and thus helping it to refrain from chaotically applying the legislation on assemblies and administrative penalties.

The report presents a series of recommendations for further improvement of the exercise of the freedom of assembly. Building the capacities of local authorities and police to work with notifications; facilitating the notification procedure; developing the skills of the members of the commission on assemblies to work and interact with organizers; and gathering disintegrated information and statistics comparable with those presented in the report in order to understand the direction of development of the notification procedure all these will lead to a more coherent application of the notification procedure.

Better awareness of the police regarding consistent application of administrative sanctions and development of police officers skills in dealing with aggressive and contradictory behavior and confrontation from various actors will strengthen and help facilitate the exercise of the right of assembly. At the same time, the implementation of the new law needs better political supervision. This law is among the best practices of the OSCE member countries, and it should be supported and encouraged.
The project on monitoring assemblies needs to be continued. It has already timely generated limited data on the application of the new law. To generate clearer data, a longer time of multilateral monitoring is needed, especially since the new law has been applied for a short time. Another reason is the fact that future elections will create special conditions for assemblies; many of the legal provisions and their implementation will be strained and therefore will require thorough monitoring.

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