Ilie Bolojan, harsh reaction after the blockage from the CCR regarding magistrates' pensions: “You can't retire people at 48 with a pension equal to their last salary”

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan declared that it would have been good to settle the issues regarding the law on special pensions at the Constitutional Court. He emphasized that people cannot be retired at 48-52 years old and with a pension equal to the last salary.

“Of course it was very good for the CCR to resolve as quickly as possible any kind of request related to the constitutionality of a draft law. The faster these decisions are made, the more the law can enter into force and things are not delayed. Without having inside data vis-à-vis what happened, but from the public reports that were presented in the media, it seems that in order to avoid, let's say, making a decision, a blocking minority was formed, if I may say so, which postponed this decision”, said Ilie Bolojan, Saturday evening, on Digi 24, according to News.ro.

The Prime Minister said that people cannot be retired at the age of 48 while others work until the age of 65.

“You cannot retire people at the age of 48-52 with a pension equal to their last salary, when people work hard until they are 65, when our pension system only works with strong infusions from the state budget and, if we want to have a stronger economy in the coming years, we must have more people working in the real economy, so whether we like it, whether we don't like it, we must increase the retirement age for the situations in which there are the possibility of early retirement and to have more people, because we have no one to replace them with and otherwise we cannot create conditions for development in the coming years in Romania and have a pension system that is sustainable”, explained Bolojan.

About the refusal of the four judges appointed by the PSD to appear at the CCR meeting

Asked if the actions of the 4 judges from the CCR who withdrew from the meeting in which a decision on special pensions was to be taken have anything to do with the party that appointed them, Bolojan stated that he did not want to cause further conflicts in the governing coalition.

“I try to avoid potentiating conflicts in… the interior, because, you realize, if I were to make considerations related to a certain coordination, things can be interpreted, but I think that it was not that, it was simply a decision that they made thinking, of course, about other aspects, not a so-called coordinated decision,” Bolojan added.

Also asked if there is a conflict between the Government and the Judiciary, Bolojan stated that there is no such conflict.

“From my point of view, there is no conflict between the Government and part of the Judiciary. What I did by proposing this draft law is a commitment that the coalition passed in the government program, a reality that Romanians perceive very strongly as an injustice accumulated for years. Therefore, there is no project that is made against someone. This is the reality”, stated Bolojan.

Blockage at the CCR on the subject of the law on magistrates' pensions

The President of the Constitutional Court, Simina Tănăsescu, declared that even on Monday the quorum could not be met to make the decision regarding the referral to the ICCJ regarding the Law on the pensions of magistrates.

The next deadline was set for January 16, 10:00 a.m., this being the third postponement of the discussions regarding the law that changes the retirement conditions for magistrates.

CCR judges Cristian Deliorga, Gheorghe Stan, Bogdan Licu and Mihai Busuioc published, on Monday, a statement in which they explained the reasons why they were absent from the CCR meeting in which the referral regarding the magistrates' pensions was to be debated. According to them, in Sunday's meeting, one judge asked for the postponement of the ruling and three others rallied to his request, the reason being the request for a point of view through which the Government would publicly clarify that the law “does not change aspects of the service pension, but effectively abrogates this right of magistrates, consolidated over time through a rich jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court”.

The judges also asked the judge-rapporteur to clarify the solutions proposed for each criticism of unconstitutionality formulated, a request “ignored by the leadership of the Court”.