Romanian judges paralyse country in month-long strike
VALENTINA POP
28.09.2009 @ 17:26 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Romania's most powerful judges on Monday (28 September) decided to suspend a strike over salary cuts, after weeks of blocking trials and threatening to boycott the presidential election due on 22 November.
The judges of the High Court of Cassation and Justice (HCCJ), Romania's court of last resort, put their protest on hold until 31 October when they will "re-evaluate the situation and decide accordingly."
Romania's judges are wrestling with the government over benefits which they granted themselves (Photo: Diane Byrne)
The power tussle started during the summer when the coalition government, led by the centre-right Democratic-Liberal Party (PDL), trimmed salaries for all state employees and cut judges' bonuses - extra pay they had granted themselves despite a ruling by the country's Constitutional Court.
The country's public finances, severely affected by the crisis, are under scrutiny by the EU and International Monetary Fund, which lent Romania an aid package of €20 billion.
A top judge in Romania can earn more than the country's president, if all additional benefits, due to "high stress" and "danger" are paid out. The president of the HCCJ earns €6,500 a month in a country where the minimum wage is €263 a month.
Citing bad working conditions and rejecting any claims of political motivation, the judges argued they had earned the right to their bonuses. They sued the government on several counts and stopped all rulings, penal and civilian, for more than three weeks.
When Romania's attorney general Laura Kovesi refused to back the strike and appealed against the court rulings that granted bonuses to the magistrates, the judges struck back and gave a negative opinion on her re-appointment. The final decision on her second mandate lies with the country's president, Traian Basescu.
At one point, the HCCJ threatened to sabotage the upcoming presidential elections on 22 November, by refusing to appoint magistrates in the Central Electoral Bureau. On Monday, however, the judges agreed to nominate the members of the electoral body during this week.
Their decision comes after justice minister Catalin Predoiu openly stated he was looking at "all legal possibilities" to change the law in order to exclude magistrates from the electoral committees.
Mr Basescu said the protests were "illegal" and affected ordinary people already strained by slow judicial procedures. "The fact that courts don't work, trials are not pursued is against the law. Justice should re-enter legality immediately," he said earlier this month.
Romanian MEP and former justice minister Monica Macovei said the judges managed to gain some money through "blackmail" but lost public respect in return.
"Judges talk about the rule of law, but they don't respect the law themselves. Of course they need to have good salaries, but the moment they make a mistake, they should be kicked out," Ms Macovei said during a talk-show on Saturday.
In an attempt to guarantee the independence of Romania's justice system ahead of EU accession, its top judges, mostly inherited from the Communist regime, were made "immoveable," meaning that they cannot be fired or face serious sanctions for any mistakes.
They have been criticised for not becoming truly independent but rather currying favour with the government of the day, so that there is a reluctance to actually convict any high-level politicians prosecuted for corruption.
The EU commission's bi-annual reports on the state of the Romanian justice system regularly complain of "lengthy trials," "leniency by courts" and "inconsistent jurisprudence in cases of high-level corruption."
The same HCCJ that spearheaded the current strike is featured regularly in those reports for its "need to improve its practice as guardian of jurisprudence," especially regarding cases of high-level corruption.
"The cumbersome and questionable procedure of two-thirds of the 120 judges having to participate to the decisions and agree to the reasoning (after having taken the decision) causes delays and sometimes leads to unclear statements of reasons," the last report published in July notes.
Citizens outraged by the strike
The strike also hit the economic sector, with thousands of firms seeing their authorisations and legal procedures blocked. Among them are projects in agriculture, forestry and the food industry awaiting EU funding to the tune of €75 million, Adevarul newspaper reported.
"I am very annoyed by this delay. My application was complete but now I will have to get some documents issued again, because they have a short expiry date. This costs money and I am curious who will pay me damages," a farmer from the city of Galati on the Danube river told the newspaper.
In a bid to make the voice of ordinary citizens heard, the Evenimentul Zilei newspaper gathered signatures from some 3,000 Romanians outraged by the strike, calling for "justice to respect the law." On Monday, the newspaper forwarded the petition to the judges' highest body, the Supreme Council of Magistrates.
