Message to the judges after the Bănicioiu – Navalnî comparison: “You don't live in this imperfect democracy, it would be a shame!”

In justifying the acquittal of the former minister Bănicioiu, Lia Savonea and the judges from the ÎCCJ compared the Romanian judiciary with the Russian one, writes journalist Cătălin Tolontan.

Was it a slip or did they intentionally want to defy? The answer is important, says journalist Cătălin Tolontan, in an opinion published in HotNews. Because, he explains, if in reality the four judges wrote the reasoning in which they claim that Bănicioiu was treated in Romania as Navanii was treated in Russia, it means that Lia Savonea, head of the Romanian High Court, “embraces the contempt for democracy that the opponents of democracy have”.

“After working in the system for decades, do the judges think the system is completely corrupt? Because that's exactly what Russia says,” the journalist says in his article.

The reaction came after 4 judges of the High Court, including the president Lia Savonea, compared in a recent motivation the file of Nicolae Bănicioiu with that of the dead Russian dissident Aleksei Navalnîi. It is exactly Russia's argument, according to which the judiciary in Romania and in the EU is a farce, “being used to ban political opponents”, as Vladimir Putin said recently, in discussions at the Valdai International Discussion Club.

And Lia Savonea is not just any magistrate. She is the president of the High Court of Cassation and Justice and was the president of the CSM. It is the magistrate with the greatest power, explicit and implicit.

Read the entire opinion signed by Cătălin Tolontan.