Ceasing the constitutional review of the Government’s Decisions on the concession of the Chişinău Airport

(Complaints No. 39a/2013 and No. 42/2013)

On 8 October 2013 the Constitutional Court delivered its judgment on ceasing the constitutional review of the Government s Decisions on the Airport s concession (Complaints No. 39a/2013 and No. 42a/2013). The Judgment was sent for publication in the Official Journal.

Circumstances of the case 

The case originated in the complaints lodged with the Constitutional Court on 9 and 30 September 2013,  subsequently supplemented, by the MPs Ion Hadîrcă, Valeriu Saharneanu, Anatol Arhire, Oleg Bodrug, Vadim Cojocaru, Vadim Vacarciuc, Ana Guţu, Vladimir Voronin, Iurie Muntean, Mark Tkaciuk and Igor Vremea, on the constitutional review of some Decisions of the Government on the Airport's concession.

The authors of the complaint alleged, in particular, that the Government has obviously exceeded its powers from the position of a dismissed government and, therefore, the Article 103 para. (2) of the Constitution has been violated. Also, the authors challenged the mentioned acts in terms of deployment procedure of competition for the concession of the Chisinau International Airport.

The Constitutional Court ruled on the complaint in the following composition:

Mr Alexandru TĂNASE, President,

Mr Aurel BĂIEŞU,

Mr Igor DOLEA,

Mr Tudor PANŢÂRU,

Mr Victor POPA,

Mr Petru RĂILEAN, judges

Conclusions of the Court

Hearing the reasoning of the parties and examining the case file, the Court noted that management and privatization of public property, including concession under a public-private partnership of national interest, is regulated by Law No. 121-XVI of 4 May 2007 on the management and privatization of public property and other regulations.

According to the applicable legislative acts of the domain, implementing legislation on concessions is the responsibility of the Government, with the involvement of the central specialized bodies and local authorities, within the limits of their competence.

The Court noted that the authors of the complaints have not challenged the provisions of the laws, under which the contested Decisions of the Government were elaborated.

In this context, the Court held that, in accordance with Article 7 of the Constitutional Jurisdiction Code, any normative act shall be considered as constitutional until its unconstitutionality is ascertained in the process of constitutional jurisdiction.

Therefore, the provisions of Government’s Decisions, being elaborated for the enforcement of the laws that are not challenged, does not represent a matter of constitutionality, being revisable of legal review, which is of the competence of the ordinary courts.

Thereby, given that the matter of the problem concerned is related to legal review, which is in the competence of the ordinary courts, and following its previous practice, in accordance with Article 60, lett. c) of the Constitutional Jurisdiction Code, the Constitutional Court ceased the constitutional review of the challenged acts.

Judgment of the Court 

Starting from the reasoning invoked above, the Constitutional Court ceased the constitutional review of the challenged acts. The Judgment of the Constitutional Court is final, cannot be appealed, shall enter into force on the date of passing, and shall be published in the Official Journal of the Republic of Moldova.