Parliament passes justice laws again
Despite protests by the parliamentary opposition, Romanias Parliament has passed the Justice Laws, which will be submitted to Romanian President Klaus Iohannis for promulgation.
Mihai Pelin, 27.03.2018, 13:25
Corrected after the recent rulings of the Constitutional Court, the Justice Laws on the status of magistrates, the judicial organization and the functioning of the Superior Council of Magistracy have been passed by the Senate, which is the decision-maker in this case. No basic amendments were made as compared to the ones previously passed by the Chamber of Deputies.
Consequently, the leftist ruling coalition made up of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) had the legal package passed by Parliament very fast and without going through too much trouble. One of the most important amendments refers to the fact that Romania’s president is no longer allowed to appoint the managing board of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, this role being taken over by the Superior Council of Magistracy. Moreover, the judicial error committed by magistrates when exerting their function has been redefined. It is specified that the Finance Ministry shall notify the Judicial Inspection to check whether the error was caused by a prosecutor or a judge in bad faith or as a result of gross negligence.
The opposition argued that these Laws created controversies and the amendments made opened the way for abuses and questioned the independence of the judiciary. That is why, the senators of the National Liberal Party, the Save Romania Union and the People’s Movement Party voted against the Justice Laws, condemning again the rushing of debates and the insufficient time allotted for discussions. Their amendments were turned down, but the Liberals will submit again to the Constitutional Court the three re-examined Justice Laws, as Liberal MP Ioan Cupşa has announced.
Ioan Cupşa: “Within this reexamination procedure, texts were amended which had not been declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court and which have no direct, functional connection with the other texts and consequently violate other rulings of the Constitutional Court, as well as the practice in the field.”
During the plenary debates, the Social Democratic senator, Serban Nicolae, argued that over 90% of the texts passed came from the magistrates’ associations. In his view, the Laws were drafted professionally and in good faith.
Serban Nicolae: “Nobody, either in Brussels or in Bucharest or in any other part of the world has so far been able to prove that a certain text of the legal package in the form passed by Parliament during the first debate or by the Chamber of Deputies after the reexamination requested by the Constitutional Court’s ruling would impose political control or affect the independence of the justice system in Romania in any way. There is a very simple explanation: nobody has identified any text because it does not exist.”
After the vote in the Senate, the reexamined Justice Laws will be submitted to Romania’s president, Klaus Iohannis for promulgation. Some of the initial amendments made to those Laws sparked off large-scale street protests and triggered the criticism of certain magistrates.
