28 June 2023
Press release
Given the adoption by the Romanian Senate of the draft law amending and supplementing certain normative acts in the field of service pensions, the Superior Council of Magistracy expresses its disagreement with the manner in which the Romanian Parliament understood to relate to the judicial authority, by adopting measures with irremediable consequences on the independence of justice and the status of magistrates.
In the legislative process there was no honest institutional dialogue between the legislative and judicial powers, in the sense that no real opinion of the Council was requested on the adopted form of the draft law.
The legislative power sent to the Council another form of the draft law, which was endorsed with comments by the Plenum Decision nr. 187 of 22.12.2022. The draft law adopted today was successively amended before the committees of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, having a totally different form from the one approved favorably with comments and introduces new conditions that have not been debated and on which the opinion of the Superior Council of Magistracy has not been issued. Thus, the bill initially transmitted and adopted by the first notified chamber – the Romanian Senate, did not provide any age conditions for retirement, but only regulated the minimum length of service in the profession.
Due to the lack of loyal cooperation, the Romanian Parliament ignored constitutional principles, assuming the generation of obvious negative consequences at the level of the entire justice system.
As a constitutional guarantor of judicial independence, the Superior Council of Magistracy considers that such legislative changes should be based on a genuine dialogue involving all state powers in order to find the best solutions to ensure the rule of law, the independence of justice and the predictability of the law.
Public Information and Media Relations Office
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