CHISINAU. June 8 (Interfax) - The Moldovan parliament on Thursday voted to allow the country's Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) to conduct surveillance, eavesdrop, and intercept correspondence as part of "special cases" rather than criminal investigations.
The bill was voted for by 54 members of the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) (out of a total of 101), while the opposition opposed it, an Interfax correspondent reported.
The new law, titled "On the Security and Intelligence Service," contains general provisions regulating SIS activities, and unlike current legislation, broadens its powers. It also spells out the rules for appointing the SIS director and their resignation in detail.
The new law allows the SIS to conduct special investigative procedures (surveillance, interception of correspondence and eavesdropping, among others) outside of a criminal investigation but as part of a "special case." The SIS will lead and gather information for such cases.
A member of parliament for PAS, Lilian Carp, who chairs the security commission, said that after receiving the conclusions of the Venice Commission and following their adoption at the first reading on March 30, there had been 20 rounds of public hearings and meetings of working groups to fine tune the bill.
The final version "conceptually reviews SIS powers, provides a clear definition of its obligations and powers, and does away with ambiguities and excessive powers," he said.
The new law therefore creates opportunities for monitoring SIS activities, including through judicial control carried out when permission is given to conduct counterintelligence and consider the legality of acts or SIS activities. It also improves opportunities for prosecutors' oversight by allowing prosecutors to obtain information on the organization, forms, tactics, methods and means of SIS activities in cases of an open criminal inquiry into violations of the law.
The law also allows the SIS to apply for government grants and donations.
"To avoid further misreadings of the legislation, amendments will be drafted to a whole series of laws, including on national security and the Penal Code, in order to prevent abuse of office and potential leaks of information on counter-intelligence activity," Carp said.
The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe analyzed two bills, and said that the proposed legal changes gave the SIS excessively broad powers with little democratic oversight. The experts pointed out to the Moldovan government that the bills appeared to be in their very early stages, and recommended a broad public consultation before they become law.
The Commission concluded that in the way the two bills designed it, the SIS risked turning into an excessively powerful intelligence service which, on the one hand, would enjoy a high degree of autonomy, and on the other, would retain the risk of becoming politicized.