Augustin Zegrean claims that the CCR has reason to reject the law on magistrates' pensions. What the former court judge invokes

Former president of the Constitutional Court Augustin Zegrean argues, in a dialogue with Hotnews, that the law that amends the special pension system, attacked by the supreme court at the Constitutional Court, can be rejected for reasons such as the principle of non-retroactivity or because it has been adopted by an exceptional procedure, and not by law in Parliament.

Augustin Zegrean stressed that he did not read the 39 pages of pages by which the Supreme Court notified the RCC, but “at the JCCJ there are good lawyers who can find unconstitutional problems.” Both problems invoked by Zegrean can be found in the notification made by the Supreme Court.

“Sanșe are all the time if we look at the laws they make new. They all have constitutionality problems either in the way of adoption or content. I have not read the reasons for attacking it at the CCR, but an appeal is on retroactive provisions.

Other reasons such as the lack of CSM opinion are cataloged by Zegrean as “stories”, as “the initiator (no Government) has no obligation to take into account it or wait if they do not give it on time.”

In contrast, a constitutional issue is that the Government assumes responsibilities on a law adopted by the Parliament, while the natural procedure is that these changes are also made by a law in Parliament.

“The way of adoption is questionable because it is not a problem that you can over. This way by assuming liability. The law was not put in public debate, no one knew about it. The way of adopting the laws is another. Assuming the responsibility is the Government, here it is to change a law, and the laws are not adopted by Parliament. Former president of the RCC.

“Nobody has ever thought that we can reach this situation.”

Changes in the status of magistrates, as is the case here, must be made by a discussion between executive and judicial power, Zegrean also points out.

“It is not a normal adoption. The fact that they have assumed responsibility on five bills in a day has to think. Assuming liability is an absolutely exceptional thing. And in emergency ordinances there were cases that the Court has rejected because the emergency is not justified. It cannot be done in one day.

The law on special pensions reform is the only one that has been adopted so far as the opposition has chosen not to attack it through a censorship motion within three days of taking responsibility. The other four projects for which Ilie Bolojan assumed on Monday were attacked by censorship motions that will be debated and voted on Sunday in Parliament.

Why have the projects so far have been declared unconstitutional

The judges of the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided on Thursday to notify the Constitutional Court regarding the unconstitutionality of the law that amends the special pension system for judges and prosecutors and for which the Bolojan Government has assumed responsibility in the Parliament. The supreme court accuses, among others, that “the importance of the service pension in the economy of the principle of independence of justice” was ignored.

And in the past the subject of the elimination of special pensions reached the table of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), and the draft law aimed at eliminating were rejected by the constitutional judges. Ilie Bolojan claimed on Tuesday that the old decisions of the RCC were analyzed so that there are no more constitutionality problems in the current changes.

Some of the reasons invoked so far by the RCC, when it has decided that the special pensions are unconstitutional:

• The fact that the magistrates need these pensions-because throughout their careers a series of rules are imposed, such as prohibiting the right to strike or the prohibition of the right to be elected in the Chamber of Deputies, Senate, as President of Romania or in the local administration bodies, as well as the right to be elected in the European Parliament.
• An acquired legal right would have been affected
• The independence of justice would have been affected
• Discrimination between categories of pensioners – in 2022 a draft law was declared unconstitutional that provided for the elimination of special pensions only for parliamentarians
• Irregularities related to the law adoption procedure by Parliament
• The law was created “without any documentation or foundation, research or impact study”
• No previous CCR decisions were respected on the same subject

Most recently, in December 2024, the CCR declared unconstitutional the progressive taxation of special pensions. According to the Court, the law that would have introduced the progressive tax for these pensions would have created “the premises for the pension to be permanently discussed and subjected to annual recalculation”.