Romanian President Requests Government To Immediately Repel Judicial Decree

In a statement issued by the Presidential Administration, the head of state considers that the decree is an “attack against judicial independence”, infringes on the principle of separation of powers and ignores Romania’s commitments as an EU member state.

The president also criticized PM Viorica Dancila for the fact that she invited only magistrate associations and representatives of top judicial watchdog CSM to hold talks on the subject, while he praised courts and prosecutor’s offices which decided to suspend their non-urgent activity in protest against the bill.

“In a democracy, the judiciary cannot be subservient to the political and, furthermore, the sudden amendment of judicial laws in the interest of certain people or groups of people cannot qualify as an emergency (…) The actions of magistrates, institutions from this field and everyone who in the last couple of days issued warnings on this new attack against the judiciary shows that Romania’s democracy is mature and reacts to abusive demeanor,” the president stated.

Romanian Justice Minister Tudorel Toader announced the decree in question last week and presented several of its amendments, mainly regarding the criteria for appointing top prosecutors.

In addition, the bill contains several changes to the contest for admission into the National Institute of Magistracy (INM) and the attributions of the Supreme Court’s Section for Investigating Judicial Offences (SIIJ) chief-prosecutor, and blocks delegations into top prosecutor roles.

The decree amends the procedure for appointing top prosecutors, with candidacies to be reviewed by CSM’s plenary, instead of the institution’s Prosecutors’ Section, as was the case until now.

It also extends the eligibility criteria for top prosecutor offices to judges who have previously been prosecutors, instead of only prosecutors who are active at the time of the nomination.

CSM announced last week that did not request the bill’s most controversial provisions.

The act was criticized by Romania’s main prosecutors’ offices, but also by CSM’s Prosecutors’ Section and by the National Union of Romanian Judges. The institutions accused that the bill’s provisions might block the agencies’ activities and infringe on the principle of separating the careers of judges and prosecutors.

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