President Klaus Iohannis unveiled the new justice laws on Tuesday, a day after the Constitutional Court published its reasoning rejecting an appeal by the USR, the AUR and the People’s Advocate against three justice laws passed by parliament.

In addition, the USR has reported to the Venice Commission on three founding acts, and the forum is due to publish its opinion in December. At the same time, the European Commissioner for Justice advised the Bucharest authorities to wait for the conclusion of the Venice Commission.

However, President Klaus Iohannis said on October 7 that his direct request to the government and parliament for the justice package was to take into account the known recommendations, adding that he did not believe the Venice Commission would have a different opinion. from those until now.

“There are several issues to be considered here. The Venice Commission has been briefed many times, myself included, on the justice laws, and we have a whole set of recommendations. I do not think that if another opinion is sought it will be any different to what has been done so far and my clear request to the Government and to Parliament has been to take into account the recommendations which we know are not unknown matters and If the parliament passes laws in this sense, I don’t expect any problems,” Iohannis said at the time.

Even at the level of the Government, waiting for the conclusion of the Venice Commission was not taken into account, since the projects were agreed with the European Commission, and if there are problems reported by the Venice Commission, they will be corrected later.

What did the UDR and the People’s Advocate complain about

On Wednesday, November 9, the Constitutional Court of Romania rejected appeals filed by the USR, the AUR and the People’s Advocate against three justice laws passed by the parliament.

The KRS rejected as unacceptable and unfounded all five appeals regarding the Law on the Statute of Judges and Prosecutors, the Law on the Judiciary and the Law on the High Council of Magistrates.

Why did the UDR attack the three laws of justice on the KKR? Stelian Ion: “The current government forced the procedure as much as possible and did not wait for the conclusion of the Venice Commission (…) It oligarchizes the entire judicial system, establishing control over what it means to carry out an act of justice. “.

The People’s Advocate informed the KRS regarding several articles of the Law on the Status of Judges and Prosecutors, which provide for:

• “Judges, prosecutors, assistant magistrates and specialists in legal matters, equal to judges and prosecutors, have the right to organize local, national and international professional organizations or to join them in order to protect their professional rights and interests and may be members of scientific or academic societies, as well as any legal entity of private law without a hereditary purpose, which may be part of their governing bodies.”
• “Judges, prosecutors, assistant justices of the peace and legal specialists equivalent to them can be members of commissions for the review or development of projects of normative acts, domestic or international documents and can have the status of experts in projects with external funding in the field of justice.”
• The People’s Advocate noted that in addition to the forms of manifestation of the right to association, the law provides for the expansion of the range of functions that judges and prosecutors can perform, which go beyond the scope of activities for the administration of justice.

Chuke’s government passed three justice laws in August that were criticized by parts of the system and civil society, and three regulations were then passed by parliament. New justice laws were drafted by the government to correct the pernicious changes made to the management of the PSD.

Associations of Magistrates spoke of the “compromising of some progress made in the fight against corruption and organized crime”, saying that “the Minister of Justice is deceiving European partners without any restraint in an insidious and endless game”, as many of the harmful changes criticized by international bodies in recent years.