Millennium’s Open Justice Project assisted the Government of Moldova to improve the efficiency and transparency of the Moldovan judicial system and improve access to justice for the citizens of Moldova. The project was funded by USAID and closed in November 2020.
A major accomplishment of the project was developing and installing an overarching Integrated Case Management System (ICMS) to interface with existing and future databases in the justice sector, strengthen court administration processes, and building the capacity of the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) to refine legislation consistent with the goals and objectives of the Justice Sector Reform Strategy, in close collaboration with civil society.
Open Justice also implemented a series of targeted activities to increase the transparency and accountability of the justice system.These included activities to advance and fully apply judicial ethics standards, disciplinary procedures, and a sound evaluation and merit-based judicial selection system to reduce corruption risks, strengthen professionalism and integrity, and hold the judiciary accountable for violations of ethical standards and the law. Open Justice also applied international standards of excellence (IFCE) in its piloting of model courts among four appellate courts.
In implementing these activities, the Open Justice Project worked in partnership with key actors and stakeholders within Moldova’s justice system, primarily the Superior Council of Magistracy, the Ministry of Justice, the Agency for Court Administration, and courts throughout the country.
In addition to implementing court automation and modern information technology (IT) solutions in the judiciary, the Project assisted its local counterparts to improve caseflow and court processes, streamline the court reorganization process, and publish court performance indicators and a statistical web report card online so that the media and citizens can readily access information about court performance. The Project also digitized all 740,824 decisions issued by the Chisinau District Court from 1965 to 2009. This will contribute to more consistent application of the law by enabling judges and staff from the court to reference and review these decisions online.
