What CSM says about the pensioner magistrates who pay small rents. “Old legal situations”, and the information in the press “have the exclusive purpose of amplifying the negative social emotion”
Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM), photo: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea
The Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) states that judges and prosecutors who have kept their dwellings after retired have this benefit from a law “repealed since December 15, 2022”, because the rental contracts were concluded “10-20 years ago”.
Free Europe reported on Sunday that dozens of magistrates, some pensioners, pay rent between 60 and 197 lei in homes in the center of the capital provided by the Ministry of Justice. According to the publication, some of the beneficiaries have left the system for more than 10 years, received the homes with modest rents and kept them under the same preferential conditions. Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan was also asked about this situation, on Monday, in an interview on B1 TV.
“The previous legislation, respectively Law no. 303/2004, repealed from December 15, 2022, provided that the judges and prosecutors have the right to rent the service homes, that they could not be bought, and in the case of the old -age retirement, the holder of the rental contract and, as the case may be, the spouse, the spouse, the husband, in a press release.
The SCM argues that at its initiative the “amendment of the law was made in 2022, in the sense of eliminating this benefit at the time of release from office”.
“The legal situations presented in the press articles were born under the empire of the old law, the rental contracts being concluded 10-20 years ago and being governed by the law in force at that time, as a principle of law in the Romanian and European legislation,” notes the SCM.
The forum specified that, “at present, Law no. 303/2022 provides for the termination of the contract for renting the service at the date of issuance, including by retirement, of the holder”.
“At this moment, only 7 magistrates in office benefit from the housing fund of the Ministry of Justice, the vast majority of the contracts being concluded between 2007 and 2013,” said the SCM.
The SCM says that there are many other areas “many other professional fields in which the legislation provides for the possibility of assigning a service house”, a “benefit” regulated in Law no. 114 of 1996 and in other primary or secondary normative acts.
“The judicial system has shown a constant concern for the modification of several normative situations of this kind, noting and requesting itself the correction of legal provisions that no longer corresponds to the current social realities,” the statement said.
The SCM concludes that, “in this context, the reiteration of some old legal situations, born under the empire of the previous abrogated legislation, such as those regarding the retirement age, the possibility that the pension exceeds the net income or to the possibility of preserving the service houses rented after the issuance, without specifying that they can not be released, exclusively the amplification of the negative social emotion to the body of the magistrates ”.
