She started her career as a courier and registrar and joined the magistrate corps in 1990. In 2000 she got promoted to a post of judge in the Court of Appeal and in 2003 Mrs. Budai got appointed to the Chisinau Court of Appeal, where she earned the job of deputy chairwoman ten years later; she still holds this position today.

Nelea Budai is one of many Moldovan judges who earned a bad name for the condemnation of Moldova in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In a governmental report released to the High Council of Magistrates in 2013, the name of Nelea Budai is associated with seven cases for which the ECHR slapped Moldova for violation of various fundamental rights.

A performance evaluation board of the High Council of Magistrates found in 2016 that Mrs. Budai had been part of a judge panel that allowed the infringement of the European Convention for Human Rights, in particular Article 8. That was the case of a 32-year-old woman who was sterilized in a maternity without her consent but received negligible compensations as ruled by national courts. The ECHR dictated Moldova to pay 12,000 euros in damages to the woman.

Nelea Budai was also part of a judge panel which in November 2015 ordered the Public Property Agency to sell a wished-for 1.17-hectare land site within the Moldexpo exhibition center in the capital to Finpar Invest SRL. The latter is the oldest business of the former leader of the Moldovan Democratic Party, Vladimir Plahotniuc. The site hosts a number of studios of General Media Group, Plahotniuc’s media holding. The litigation with Finpar Invest SRL took four years and the Supreme Court of Justice ultimately turned down the claim.

The judge’s husband has worked lately in a number of security companies. Among them is Klassika Force SRL of Ilan Sor, Orhei city’s fugitive mayor-turned-lawmaker who earned seven years and six months in prison for his role in the billion-dollar fraud in 2014.