Deputies approve dismantling of special department for magistrates

The Chamber of Deputies pass bill to dismantle a special department to investigate crimes in the judiciary.

Mihai Pelin, 22.02.2022, 13:50

A bill on the dismantling of a controversial special department to
investigate magistrates was adopted by the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest. The
Save Romania Union in opposition says the bill reverses tens of years of progress
in the justice system, while the majority formed by the Social Democratic
Party, the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians
in Romania says it brings things back to normal. The bill was passed with 205 yes
votes and 90 votes against, from the Save Romania Union, the Alliance for the
Union of Romanians and the Force of the Right Party led by the former Liberal
prime minister Ludovic Orban. The bill will next be submitted to the
Senate for a final vote.

During the debates,
the former justice minister and Save Romania Union MP Stelian Ion said a much
more noxious structure is created instead of the special department, that restricts
the remit of the National Anticorruption Directorate. He said his party would
challenge the bill in the Constitutional Court. Stelian Ion:

This is an attempt
from people with something to hide, with skeletons in their closets, to elude
the National Anticorruption Directorate. It’s a manoeuvre that will have a heavy
cost on the fight against corruption in the coming period.

The National
Liberal Party MP Cristina Trăilă said the bill will bring things back to normal
in the judicial system, in keeping with the recommendations of international
bodies in the field:

I don’t think
anyone can say that a prosecutor with at least 15 years of experience is not
able to investigate magistrates. Moreover, this is the first bill to have the
positive opinion of the Superior Council of Magistracy, the sole body
guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary.

Under the bill,
which attracted much criticism, cases of possible acts of corruption by
magistrates will be prosecuted by the Prosecutor General’s Office and the
prosecutor’s offices of the courts of appeal. The centre of operations will be
the criminal and forensic department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, where
12 prosecutors will investigate accusations of corruption among magistrates. The
National Anticorruption Directorate, the only department in the Prosecutor’s
Office specialising in acts of corruption, is thus completely excluded, as
insistently requested by the Social Democrats and the Democratic Union of
Ethnic Hungarians. Apart from the 12 aforementioned prosecutors, another 30
prosecutors, two for each prosecutor’s office of the courts of appeal around the
country, will have the remit to investigate such acts. The 42 will be proposed
by the Prosecutor General and the heads of the prosecutor’s offices and appointed
by the Superior Council of Magistracy.

The special
department to investigate magistrates was created in 2018 and has been seen as a
possible instrument to intimidate magistrates. It employs seven prosecutors who
are paid some 3,000 euros a month, but who so far have not prosecuted a single
case of corruption among magistrates. (CM)