Letter to Ursula von der Leyen to revise the position of the European Commission submitted to CJEU on multiple cases related to Romania

I. On the necessity to set up the Section for Investigating the Crimes within Judiciary (SIIJ)

In the analysis of this point, the European Commission starts from listing some correct principles regarding the independence of judges, underlining that:

“76. According to the Court of Justice, these guarantees of independence and impartiality postulate the existence of some rules, in particular as regards the composition of the court, the appointment of judges, the duration of the office, as well as the causes of abstention, recusal and dismissal of its members, which to allow the removal of any legitimate doubts, in the perception of the justiciable ones, regarding the impenetrability of that respective court with regard to external elements and its impartiality in relation to the interests it is faced with.”

Or, the creation of SIIJ was determined precisely by the fact that, in order to make the judges accountable, “the necessary guarantees to avoid any risk of using such a regime as a system of political control of the content of judicial decisions” was needed, as the Court had also requested.

1. Professional rank/degree and the experience of DNA prosecutors who have investigated magistrates

We underline that, prior to the establishment of SIIJ, the competence of investigating the crimes committed by magistrates was the responsibility of the prosecutor’s offices as following:

The crimes for the competence of DNA and DIICOT were investigated by the prosecutors from these unites;
For the other offenses, if the magistrate had the High Court of Cassation and Justice (HCCJ) rank, he was investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office adjacent to HCCJ (PHCCJ), if he did not have that rank, he was investigated in the first phase by the prosecutor’s offices adjacent to the courts of appeal.

The basic rule regarding the career of magistrates allowed the access to the higher levels of jurisdiction in the courts and prosecutors’ offices only on the basis of competitions and taking into account seniority requirements, through all the professional degrees.

In the case of the prosecutors from DNA, which is the structure within the PHCCJ placed at the top of the Public Ministry, derogation from the above rules was made which allowed access in DNA, based on an untransparent interview with the DNA’s chief-prosecutor, even of prosecutors with four years minimum experience.

This way, even if, theoretically, the judges should have been investigated only by prosecutors with a minimum rank of prosecutor’s office adjacent to the court of appeal and at least 10 years of experience, in fact, by the derogation allowed in the DNA, hundreds of magistrates were investigated by prosecutors with the lowest rank and a minimum experience in the magistracy.

2. A specialized structure for investigating magistrates already existed within the DNA from 2014

It is also important to remember that within DNA it was operating since 2014 the “Service of combating corruption within judiciary”, which was established by the DNA chief-prosecutor’s Order No. 10 on 31 January 2014. This Service had the power to investigate all corruption offenses allegedly committed by judges and prosecutors.

The establishment of this service was made non-transparent, that order not being made public until recently.

Later, through the Order No. 1.643 /C on 15 May 2015 and as a result of the opinion given by the Prosecutors Section of the Superior Council of Magistracy, the Minister of Justice approved the “Regulation for Internal Order of the National Anticorruption Directorate”.

In article 4 paragraph (2) lit. a) of the Regulation this Service is explicitly mentioned: “At the central level, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate is organized into sections, services, offices and other activity compartments. Within the Section of combatting corruption there is the Service for criminal investigation in corruption cases and the Service of combating corruption within judiciary”.

In conclusion, from 2014 until the establishment of SIIJ in 2018, there was already a specialized structure within the Public Ministry for criminally investigating corruption in cases with judges and prosecutors.

3. The abuses of DNA prosecutors against the magistrates documented by the Judicial Inspection and the SCM

The competence of that Service to investigate magistrates from DNA included the offenses of abuse of office and favoring the offenders, offenses that were interpreted in a broad sense, which went all the way to investigate judges for their rulings and prosecutors for their solutions.

Thus, prosecutors with the lowest professional rank and minimum experience in magistracy, who got into DNA based on a simple untransparent interview, ended up investigating judges from court of appeals or the High Court of Cassation and Justice for abuse of office because the prosecutors considered that the judges’ decisions were not correct.

Moreover, by the way it was organized, that Service unit presented a series of structural deficiencies, which allowed DNA prosecutors to use criminal cases as a means of pressure and blackmail judges.

This conclusion results clearly from the Judicial Inspection Report No. 5488 / IJ / 2510 / DIJ / 1365 / DIP / 2018 regarding the “compliance with the general principles governing the activity of the Judicial Authority in the National Anti-Corruption Directorate’s (DNA) cases regarding magistrates or in relationship to them”, report approved on 15 October 2019 by the Decision No. 225 of the Plenum of the Superior Council of Magistracy.

The control targeted by the Judicial Inspection report covers the period 01 Janaury 2014 to 31 July 2018, and from the decision of the SCM Plenary for approving this report the following essential conclusions are drawn:

In total, throughout all of its central and national structures, during that time DNA targeted 1962 judges (351 judges were in criminal matters and 1590 in civil matters; among them one was Constitutional Court judge, 13 judges were members / former members of the Superior Council of the Magistracy and 16 judges were judicial inspectors).
In 113 files regarding the judges and in 163 files regarding the prosecutors, the investigations were opened ex officio by the DNA.
In many cases, the duration of the investigations was excessive, reaching periods that frequently exceeded three to five years. In one case the duration was 12 years and six months!
Officers of the Romanian Intelligence Service effectuated criminal investigative acts in cases with magistrates.[1]
The DNA prosecutors opened ex officio investigations especially against the judges and investigated them for their rulings. In some cases the DNA prosecutors opened ex officio investigation against the judges that, at the same time, were judging DNA cases.
Many cases that were left unresolved, even for a very long period of time, were resolved in bulk right before SIIJ was made operational. For example, a file opened in 2013 ex officio concerning prosecutors and judges from the SCM, in which technical surveilance measures were ordered even against their family members, was closed in 2018.[2] A file concerning a judge from the Timis Tribunal, opened in 2006, was closed in 2018, after 12 years. [3] Other files were in the same situation.

Based on all these data resulting from the control performed by the Judicial Inspection, the Superior Council of Magistracy concluded that: “The practices of DNA prosecutors who have investigated cases with judges in the ways mentioned below have represented forms of pressure on them, with direct consequences in the way the justice act was executed.”

4. The decision of the Romanian Constitutional Court

As a result of these abuses committed over time by the DNA prosecutors that clearly endangered the independence of justice, SIIJ was created as an additional means of guaranteeing the independence of the judges, a fact that was also expressly stated by the Romanian Constitutional Court in the Decision 33/2018:

“147. In regards to the establishing of the Section for the Investigation of Crimes within Judiciary, at the level of the highest national prosecutor’s office, the Court notes that its purpose is to create a specialized structure, with a determined object of investigation, and constitutes a legal guarantee of the principle of independence of justice, in terms of its individual componence, the independence of the judge. This way, it is assured adequate protection of the magistrates against the pressures exerted on them, against the abuses committed by arbitrary complains / denunciations and a unitary practice is ensured, at the level of this prosecutor’s office, regarding the carrying out of the criminal prosecution acts for the offenses committed by magistrates.”

Therefore, the European Commission’s conclusion that “there does not seem to be an objective and plausible justification for setting up SIIJ” is clearly unfounded and out of touch with the reality of the Romanian justice system.

II. Erroneous arguments sent by the European Commission to CJEU, analyzed punctually

1. “83. The section is led by a chief prosecutor and a deputy chief prosecutor, appointed by the Superior Council of Magistracy. Although it was created within the Prosecutor’s Office adjacent to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the Section has acquired a large autonomy following the adoption of Emergency Government Ordinance No. 7/2019, which eliminated the hierarchical subordination of the Chief Prosecutor of the Section to the General Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office adjacent to the High Court of Cassation and Justice.”

The Commission’s conclusion is erroneous, the chief prosecutor of SIIJ still being hierarchically subordinate to the General Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office adjacent to the High Court of Cassation and Justice.

Through Emergency Government Ordinance 7/2019 the article 88^1 from Law 304/2004 was amended, by introducing paragraph 6 which states that: “Whenever the Criminal Procedure Code or other special laws refer to the «superior hierarchical prosecutor» in the case of offenses within the jurisdiction of SIIJ, this means the SIIJ chief-prosecutor, even in the cases resolved before SIIJ became operation.”

This change was generated by the following situation: The solutions or measures taken prior to the existence of SIIJ by the DNA prosecutors could no longer be censored by anyone, because the prosecutors in the SIIJ were not “hierarchically superior” to those in the DNA, and other prosecutors, than the ones in SIIJ, did not have jurisdiction to investigate magistrates. There was a deadlock that required legislative intervention to clarify this aspect.

At the same time, however, there were neither modified nor repealed texts that explicitly stated that SIIJ chief-prosecutor is hierarchically subordinated to the General Prosecutor of PHCCJ.

Thus, article 88¹ para. 1 of Law No. 304/2004 clearly states that the SIIJ is set up and operates within the Prosecutor’s Office adjacent to the High Court of Cassation and Justice.

Moreover, SIIJ is covered in Title III, Chapter II of Law No. 304/2004, which refers to the “Organizing of the Public Prosecutor Services”. This title has sections referring to the Public Prosecutor’s Office attached to the HCCJ, the Terrorism and Organized Crime Investigative Directorate (DIICOT), the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), the Section for Investigating Infractions within the Judiciary (SIIJ), the public prosecutor’s offices attached to the courts of appeal and county courts, the military prosecution services. All these structures are equally hierarchically subordinated to the Prosecutor General, without any exception regarding SIIJ.

Also, article 72 of Law 304/2004, which states that “the General Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office adjacent to the High Court of Cassation and Justice exercised, directly or through specific designated prosecutors, the control over all the prosecutor’s offices”, was neither modified nor repealed.

Furthermore, the Constitutional Court has already solved this problem, explicitly stating in the Decision 33/2018 that: “149. From the joint analysis of all these legal norms, it results that the chief prosecutor of this specialized structure from within the Prosecutor’s Office adjacent to the HCCJ is subordinated to the leader of this prosecutor’s office. As stated above, SIIJ is a specialized structure within the Prosecutor’s Office adjacent to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, so the SIIJ chief-prosecutor is hierarchically subordinated to the General Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office adjacent to the HCCJ.”

As a result, any interpretation of the newly introduced text must be made in the light of this decision, and any other interpretation, such as that of the SIIJ is outside the hierarchical control, is clearly erroneous.

In conclusion, the hierarchical subordination of the SIIJ chief prosecutor to the general prosecutor of PHCCJ is obvious and results from reading the legal texts, some mentioned even in the observations submitted by the Commission to CJEU.

2. “85. On the one hand, setting up a prosecutorial unit with competence ‘ratione personae’ covering any type of crimes committed by magistrates is likely to create the impression of a phenomenon of corruption and criminality widespread in the judicial system.”

The conclusion is purely speculative. Moreover, this conclusion ignores the reality existing in the judicial system at the time when SIIJ was established.

Thus, “the impression of a phenomenon of corruption and criminality widespread in the judicial system” was already created by the DNA, first of all through the hundreds of files opened ex officio against prosecutors and judges, which have been kept open for years by DNA.

Secondly, through the way these cases were publicly managed by DNA – extensive press releases announcing the start of investigations, leaking information to the press from files during the investigation period, including transcripts from wiretappings, images with magistrates in handcuffs -, they have were the one creating the impression of a corrupt body of magistrates, even if they were at the end acquitted or the charges against them dropped.

There was also a consolidated practice at the DNA level to give detailed press releases that included the names of the accused judges or prosecutors, a broad description of the alleged state of fact and of the offenses they were charged with, which were subsequently broadcasted by the press. However, if the accusations against those magistrates were later dropped or they were acquitted, DNA had not communicated this, so the public remained with the impression that the former accused magistrate is guilty. This practice was not only a breach of the presumption of innocence, but also brought serious harm to the image of justice.

In conclusion, no SIIJ would create the “the impression of a phenomenon of corruption and criminality widespread in the judicial system“, but it was the DNA which has already done it so by investigating judges and prosecutors by violating the rules regarding the presumption of innocence, of the reasonable duration of the proceedings and the right to defense.

3. “85. (…). Thus, the Section is the first prosecutor’s office specialized in criminal prosecution of a professional category (magistrates), representing an exception from the current practice, in the Romanian judicial system, of organizing specialized prosecutor’s offices based on the type of crime investigated (ratione materiae). ”

This statement of the European Commission is completely wrong.

Traditionally, in the Romanian legal system, the competence in criminal law has been regulated both according to the quality of the person (in the case of the military, magistrates, parliamentarians, etc.), as well as according to the type of crime.

The Romanian Constitutional Court clarified this aspect in the Decision no. 33/2018, where it emphasized that “the establishment of special jurisdiction rules regarding a certain category of persons is not an element of novelty in the current criminal procedural normative framework“.

The Constitutional Court refers both to the rules of competence aimed at the military, as well as to other norms that establish competence by the person, including in the case of magistrates.

The Constitutional Court also refers to a previous decision pronounced in 2009, in which it stated that “the establishment of special jurisdiction rules regarding a certain category of persons – active military –, in the sense that in the cases regarding the crimes of corruption committed by them the criminal prosecution is carried out by military prosecutors within the National Anticorruption Directorate, regardless of the military rank that the investigated persons have, it is not contrary to the principle of equality before the law”.

In conclusion, SIIJ is not the first prosecutorial structure specialized in the criminal prosecution of certain categories of persons, a matter of fact found as such even by the Romanian Constitutional Court.

4. “85. (…) This may, in the Commission’s view, bring serious damage to the image of the magistrates’ profession, which will affect the confidence of the citizens in the justice system.”

The statement is purely speculative and it does not have any factual basis.

As we have already shown in above point 2, serious damage to the image of the magistrates’ profession has already been made by the way DNA conducted the penal investigation prior to the operationalization of SIIJ. This is proven by the continuing decrease of citizens’ confidence in justice since 2015, when it started to become public both the abuses of the cases prosecuted by some DNA prosecutors, as well as the serious interference of the intelligence services in the justice system.

Thus, the decrease of confidence in the justice must be correlated with the decrease of confidence in DNA, since in the public eyes the justice system was identified with the fight against corruption.

At a confidence rate of 63% in 2015, DNA’s confidence has dropped to 30% in 2018, for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph.

As such, the citizens’ confidence in the justice system, and especially in the prosecutor’s offices, at the time of the establishment of the SIIJ was already in dramatic decline.

Contrary to the opinion of the European Commission, the creation of SIIJ could have the effect of improving this confidence, since in a recent opinion poll most of the people who answered said that they are in favor of maintaining it.

5. “86. On the other hand, an autonomous structure for investigating judges can be used as an instrument of intimidation and pressure on their activity, especially if it’s taken into consideration the context in which the Section was created, as part of a complex legislative reform that has weakened the independence of the judiciary and the fight against corruption.”

Again, the Commission ignores the fact that, prior to the establishment of the SIIJ, the investigation of the judges was actually used as a mean to intimidate and pressure them. This is the context that the Commission must take into consideration.

For example, at the beginning of 2019 the discussion recorded between 5 DNA prosecutors from Oradea was made public, where they planned on how to open criminal investigations against judges in order “to put fear” in them and to set an example out of them for the other judges.

Their plan was put into practice, as explained in a letter to SCM by a judge who was one of their targets:

“At the beginning of 2019 a recording with 5 prosecutors from DNA Oradea was made public. In this recording they were discussing in DNA Oradea offices, on 19.01.2018, about a series of criminal repressive methods to “scare” and “calm down” the judges of Oradea Court of Appeal and Bihor District Court. An important thing to be mentioned is that the 5 DNA prosecutors who took part in the respective discussion, that is Man Ciprian, Muntean Adrian, Ardelean Ciprian, Pantea Cosmin and Rus Lucian, did not contest the authenticity of the recording.

Once the recording was made public, a huge mechanism of media and political propaganda, supported also be a few prosecutors and judges, was set in motion in order to minimize the severity of what those 5 DNA prosecutors had said in the respective recording, under the pretext that the respective discussion inside the DNA Oradea was not followed by any acts or facts, it was just a simple talk, gossip between colleagues.

In reality, though, the discussions were not just preceded, but also followed by acts and facts of the respective DNA Oradea prosecutors.”

6. “86 (…) This creates an inhibitory effect on the judges and their activity, as well as a general suspicion regarding the possibility of external influences, especially of a political nature, on the content of judicial decisions, which can significantly affect the independence of justice, especially the appearance of independence of the judicial bodies in Romania. ”

SIIJ was established in response to the abusive criminal investigations of DNA, which were real and serious pressures against the judges and prosecutors. They were largely described in the report of the Judicial Inspection, approved by the Plenary of the Superior Council of Magistracy on 15.10. 2019.

In response to these pressures, it was imperative to provide additional guarantees of independence of the magistrates against arbitrary criminal investigations, and this was done by the creation of SIIJ.

Thus, by the way the prosecutors in SIIJ are selected, which is done only by the SCM, by the fact that the Section must submit annual reports to the SCM Plenum, and that, on one hand, the prosecutors have a limited mandate, and, on the other side, any political influence in the functioning of the SIIJ is excluded, the independence of the magistrates is being further guaranteed.

Contrary to the statement of the European Commission from the above paragraph, the inhibiting effect on judges and prosecutors in the past was the way in which DNA instrumented thousands of files against the magistrates, an effect that had to categorically be removed and it was removed by the creation of SIIJ.

Ironically, however, the Commission that praised DNA for a long time, ignoring all its failures and abuses, even when they became public, proven and indisputable, criticizes now the new Section precisely for what it had to impute DNA for many years.

Moreover, “the possibility of external influences, especially of a political nature“ is a completely unfounded statement, since SIIJ is the only prosecutorial structure in Romania in which no political entity has competence in appointing the prosecutors who compose it. The prosecutors who work in SIIJ are appointed by the SCM Plenum, following a competition organized exclusively by the SCM, and the conditions for being able to participate in the contest guarantee the professionalism of the participants.

7. “89. Secondly, regarding the concrete necessity of setting up a specialized prosecutor’s office regarding the professional category of judges and prosecutors, in Romania there does not seem to be a high criminality among magistrates, as the Venice Commission also observed. For example, according to the data available, in 2017, of 997 defendants sent to court for crimes of high corruption or assimilated to them, only 6 were magistrates – three judges and three prosecutors. “

The figures mentioned by the Venice Commission and repeated by the European Commission cover precisely the essential problem that determined the establishment of the SIIJ: the opening of a very large number of ex-officio files by the DNA, not justified even from the perspective of the small number of files sent to court: for a period of 5 years DNA has opened 276 ex-officio files, which means that, on average, every month, DNA opened 5 files targeting judges or prosecutors!

These hundreds of ex-officio cases are added to the thousands of other cases opened against the magistrates by other procedural means and in which the investigations took long periods of time.

In this regard, the SCM says the following in the above mentioned decision:

“Thus, relevant is the large number of judges targeted by DNA in the criminal cases, viewed in correlation with the total number of judges from the respective courts, on the one hand, and with the fact that in the overwhelming majority of these cases the final solutions were to drop the charges.

For example, at the High Court of Cassation and Justice, more than 75 judges were targeted (9 of them being investigated at the territorial services of Brasov, Oradea, Constanta), at the Bucharest Court of Appeal about 100 judges, at the Court of Appeal Oradea about 35 judges (out of about 40 judges), at the Ploieşti Court of Appeal about 30 judges (out of about 50 judges), at the Brasov Court of Appeal about 25 judges, at the Iasi Court of Appeal about 20 judges (from about 45 judges), at the Constanta Court of Appeal more than 15 judges (out of about 40 judges), at the Timişoara Court of Appeal more than 15 judges (out of about 60 judges), at the Bucharest Court more than 85 of judges, in the Argeş Tribunal more than 25 judges (out of about 40 judges), in the Bihor Tribunal over 30 judges (out of about 40 judges), in the Dolj Court more than 25 judges (out of over 70 judges).

In total, at the level of the Central Structure and the territorial structures of the National Anticorruption Directorate, over 1900 judges were targeted.”

When over 70% of HCCJ judges have had criminal records in 4 years, the credibility of the justice is obviously seriously affected.

8. “89. (…) Also, there does not appear to have been any specific data or evaluations to demonstrate the existence of structural problems in the justice system, which could justify such an initiative.”

This statement proves ignorance on the part of the European Commission, because at the time of sending the observations to CJEU, the Decision of the SCM Plenum for approving the report of the Judicial Inspection, following the DNA verification regarding the way in which the files with magistrates were instrumentalized, was already adopted.

The European Commission should therefore know that there are not only “specific data or evaluations”, but even a decision in this regard given by the SCM, the only body in Romania that has the constitutional role to guarantee the independence of justice.

SCM outlined in the decision 225/15.10.2019 serious structural problems, which confirmed, in fact, the necessity of setting up SIIJ:

“The practices of DNA prosecutors who have handled cases with judges in the ways mentioned below have represented forms of pressure on them, with direct consequences regarding the execution of the justice act.

Thus, the technique of opening ex officio penal cases against the judges and investigating them for the solutions they adopted is unacceptable, of an unprecedented gravity, which undoubtedly represents a factor of pressure not only on those concerned, but on the entire professional body of judges.

The suspicions about the way of working of the DNA prosecutors are amplified by the fact that cases left open and not worked for a long period of time, after measures of technical surveillance were approved for significant periods, were closed in bulk, just before the operationalization of SIIJ.”

9. “90. (…) The draft law on the establishment of the Section received a negative opinion from the SCM, which is the guarantor of the independence of justice in Romania by virtue of the provisions of article 133 (1) of the Romanian Constitution.”

The claim that the draft law to establish SIIJ received a negative opinion from the SCM is completely false.

The negative opinion from SCM concerned the draft law promoted by the former justice minister Tudorel Toader, which wanted to establish a Directorate for the investigation of “crimes committed by magistrates” whose chief prosecutor was to be appointed following political agreements, as in the case of other high ranking prosecutors.

Contrary to the Commission’s statement, SIIJ was set up by the parliamentary initiative, offering ample guarantees of independence for the prosecutors operating within it, which was not the case of the draft law that SCM voted against.

Moreover, this issue is detailed and explained by the SCM itself, in the point of view of this institution regarding the errors in the GRECO report, published on the SCM website. [http://old.csm1909.ro/csm/linkuri/01_11_2019__96482_ro.pdf (see page 13, last paragraph) ]

10. “92. Also, a possible justification for setting up the Section on the grounds of efficiency of the judicial system is called into question by a series of arguments, submitted by the referring courts, regarding the insufficiency of the resources made available to the Section, in particular the small number of established prosecutors (15 prosecutors), lack of adequate investigative instruments (as opposed to other specialized prosecutor’s offices) and lack of appropriate territorial structures at national level (all prosecutors of the Section are to carry out their activity in Bucharest). ”

The problems raised by the Commission are in fact false.

The number of prosecutors was established because it was taken into consideration the small number of cases sent to court, which shows that, despite the large number of files previously existing on the role of DNA, there is no criminal phenomenon among judges. Nobody knew at that time that DNA had kept opened thousands of cases with magistrates.

According to the law, based on the volume of activity, the number of positions in SIIJ can be modified by order of the General Prosecutor General of the PHCCJ, at the request of the chief prosecutor of the section, with the approval of the Plenary of the Superior Council of the Magistrates – art. 88 ^ 2 paragraph 4 of Law 304/2004.

Also, the Section benefits from all the investigative tools that other specialized prosecutors have, as it is stated in art. 88 ^ 10 and art.88 ^ 11 of Law 304/2004.

11. “94. In this way, there is a risk that the new Section will be misused to circumvent certain sensitive causes (e.g. corruption) from the competence of DNA or other prosecutors and transfer them to the Special Section, which could be more predisposed to external interventions and pressures, of political order, than an institution consecrated and consolidated in time such as DNA. “

This statement is false from several perspectives.

Firstly, the SIIJ prosecutors are shielded from any political pressure or interference, since no politician is involved in the appointment of any prosecutor in SIIJ.

Secondly, regarding the professionalism of the prosecutors from SIIJ, the law established more severe conditions for participating in the competition (requiring effective seniority in the position of prosecutor of at least 18 years) and a greater complexity of the procedure for the selection of prosecutors (including the evaluation of penal acts done by prosecutors during the last 5 years, at least 5 randomly chosen acts and other documents considered relevant by candidates). All these conditions are intended to contribute to increasing the quality of criminal investigations.

On top of the guarantees already shown, we also show that:

the appointment of the prosecutors within the SIIJ is made for a period of 3 years, with the possibility of continuing the activity for a total period of maximum 9 years;
the dismissal of the prosecutors from the section is made by the Plenary of the Superior Council of Magistracy, at the motivated request of the chief prosecutor of the section, in case of improper exercise of the attributions specific to the position or in case of receiving a disciplinary sanction;
the section prepares an annual report on the activity carried out, which it submits, no later than February of the following year, to the Plenary of the Superior Council of Magistracy.

All these procedures allow the rapid identification of any skid or interference, which will also allow the possibility of correction in a timely manner.

In conclusion, the opinion expressed by the Commission in the sense that “the national provisions in question contravene the requirements of the law of the Union regarding the principle of effective judicial protection” is clearly based on unacceptable gross errors, which is why we request for them to be revisited by the Commission and to carry out a new analysis based on the facts and real data, not disinformation, fakenews and subjective appreciations.

jud. dr. Andreea Ciucă
AMR

jud. Florica Roman
AJADO

jud. Dana Gîrbovan
UNJR

proc. Elena Iordache
APR

[1] Information obtained by DNA about magistrates also was sent to the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI). See pages 63-65 from SCM decision 225/2019

http://old.csm1909.ro/csm/linkuri/08_01_2020__97031_ro.pdf

[2] Pages 12-13 of the report, Penal cases No. 167/P/2013, opened ex officio on 4 June 2013, was closed on 13 July 2018.

[3] Penal case no. 37/P/2006, opened on 28 February 2006, was closed on 24 August 2018.

Uniunea Nationala a Judecatorilor din Romania

Nimeni nu este mai presus de lege

Letter to Ursula von der Leyen to revise the position of the European Commission submitted to CJEU on multiple cases related to Romania

I. On the necessity to set up the Section for Investigating the Crimes within Judiciary (SIIJ)

II. Erroneous arguments sent by the European Commission to CJEU, analyzed punctually

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