The lawyers of former Moldovan politician Vladimir Plahotniuc have challenged the replacement of a judge on the appeal panel hearing his case, arguing that the new magistrate was appointed directly rather than selected randomly through the court case-management system.
According to lawyer Lucian Rogac, the law requires a replacement judge to be selected through the Integrated Case Management Programme using a random allocation procedure.
Judge Vitalie Budeci was replaced on the panel by Vitalie Pîslariuc. Budeci had previously failed the external evaluation of judges.
“Today we learned with astonishment that a member of the judicial panel had been replaced by another judge, without the defence being informed within the legal deadline. The law provides that a judge must be replaced through the Integrated Case Management Programme, randomly. The court president allowed himself to arbitrarily designate the judge who would replace the judge declared incompatible,” Rogac said.
During the hearing on October 1, Plahotniuc’s lawyers also asked the court to reject an appeal filed by businessman Veaceslav Platon.
According to Rogac, Platon is not a party to the proceedings and therefore had no right to challenge the ruling. The lawyer said the first-instance court had already rejected Platon’s request to be recognized as an injured party, and the Court of Appeal had reached the same decision earlier this year.
“We asked for the appeal to be declared inadmissible from the outset, without proceeding to an examination on the merits. He has no right to file an appeal,” Lucian Rogac said.
The defence has also requested that witnesses who were not heard during the first-instance proceedings be questioned during the appeal.
The first-instance court rejected the request, citing the limited time available for examining the case.
Plahotniuc’s lawyers have submitted 41 requests during the appeal proceedings. Rogac said the length of the proceedings should not be the determining factor as long as the defendant’s right to a defence is respected and alleged errors made by the first-instance court are addressed.
According to the lawyer, the most serious issue was the allegedly unlawful composition of the first-instance judicial panel, which he claims included judges who had previously ruled on related cases.
The appeal was filed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office on May 6, after Plahotniuc was sentenced by the first-instance court to 19 years in prison.
Prosecutors are now asking the Court of Appeal to increase the sentence to 25 years.
The prosecution is also challenging the lower court’s decision not to order the confiscation of 39.2 million US dollars and 3.5 million euros.
Prosecutors argue that compensation for damages and confiscation are separate measures and can be applied simultaneously.
In their appeal arguments, prosecutors say the offences for which Plahotniuc was convicted caused significant damage to Moldova’s banking system and affected the country’s economy and public trust in state institutions.
The prosecution also argues that there are no mitigating circumstances in the case that would justify a lower sentence.
Vladimir Plahotniuc was sentenced on April 22, 2025, to 19 years in prison for creating and leading a criminal organization, fraud and money laundering in the case commonly known as the “Bank Fraud” case.