The CSM challenges the legality of the committee decided by Bolojan to modify the justice laws: “It lacks legal legitimacy” / How the Government responds

Judges from the Superior Council of Magistracy attack the Government again, this time for the way in which the committee that should propose new changes to the justice laws was established, at the initiative of Prime Minister Bolojan, according to the Recorder documentary “Captured Justice”. The criticisms come a day after the meeting of this working group, to which two of the CSM judges also went. They charge that “there is no explicit normative basis that defines the legal status, competences, limits of the mandate or the relations of this committee with the constitutional authorities of the judicial system”.

• The initiative to create a task force for changes to the justice laws arose out of revelations made by a number of magistrates in the Recorder documentary 'Captured Justice'. Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said, in an interview for Cotidianul, that “it should” be until the end of January that the working group from the government come up with proposals for legislative changes in the field of justice.

After yesterday's meeting at the government, the Section for judges of the CSM accused, in a press release, that the legal texts that would be discussed by this working group formed by the decision of the prime minister are “non-transparent, it is not known who proposed them and they denote frivolity and lack of knowledge of judicial realities”.

CSM: “Discussions did not answer legitimate and essential questions about the real objective of the government committee”

“One of the proposals, although it starts from the stated idea of ​​the need to preserve the continuity of the court panel, concerns the case of the judge's absence for more than 30 days, on medical leave, a situation in which the panel will be automatically dissolved and the files will be distributed randomly, obtaining precisely the opposite effect of the stated proposal, i.e. the re-administration of evidence in all the files of the respective judge”, according to the statement sent on Thursday by the CSM.

In the opinion of the Council, the discussions held on Thursday at the Government “did not provide answers to legitimate and essential questions regarding the real objective of the Committee, its mode of operation and its legitimacy”: “It was not possible to clarify what the criteria were for the selection of the guests, why some professional associations were invited and others not. It was not specified either who makes the Committee's agenda, nor how the discussion topics get on the agenda”.

“The discussions held did not provide answers to legitimate and essential questions regarding the real objective of the Committee, its mode of operation and its legitimacy. It was not possible to clarify what the criteria were for the selection of the guests, why some professional associations were invited and others not. It was not specified either who makes the Committee's agenda, nor how the topics of discussion end up on the agenda.

The representatives of the Section for judges found the deeply equivocal nature of the basis for the establishment and operation of this Committee, given that there is no explicit normative basis to define its legal status, powers, mandate limits or relations with the constitutional authorities of the judicial system. This normative ambiguity makes it impossible to identify the nature of the activity of this committee and turns the approach into an informal mechanism, lacking legal legitimacy.

In these conditions, the Section for judges appreciates that participating in such an approach, marked by institutional ambiguity, lack of transparency, the absence of a legal foundation and the deliberate ignoring of the established authorities of the judicial system, risks conferring an appearance of legitimacy to a process lacking in credibility and the minimum guarantees of a real institutional dialogue”, the judges of the CSM also assert.

What does the Government say?

Asked by HotNews about the provenance of the proposals to amend the justice laws discussed by the working group, the Minister of Justice, Radu Marinescu, explained that the ministry also received them, from the prime minister's chancellery.

The spokeswoman of the Government, Ioana Dogioiu, told HotNews that the proposals were submitted by NGOs and associations of magistrates.

“They were not assumed by the committee, but forwarded to all members of the Committee for study,” said Ioana Dogioiu.

She also explained that in the meeting that took place yesterday at the government, those present established several topics for legislative debate and asked for contributions from the members, and all points of view will be analyzed. It is about issues related to the delegation and secondment of magistrates, the modification of court panels, the disciplinary liability of magistrates, the way of appointing the governing boards, according to the Government spokeswoman.

Oana Cambera, a former USR deputy who was appointed in August 2025 as a state counselor at the Chancellery of Prime Minister Bolojan, explained to HotNews that the proposals were drawn up by the Declic and Funky Citizens associations, but also by magistrates' associations.

“Especially the Forum of Judges, but also several magistrates who requested that their names not be published,” Cambera states. “The centralized proposals, as mentioned yesterday during the meeting, were not assumed by the Committee, but sent to all the members and guests of the Committee for study”, she explains.

Who are the CSM delegates to the government

The magistrates mandated by the CSM to participate in Thursday's meeting at the Government, Alin Ene and Claudiu Drăgușin, are the judges who in recent months have vehemently criticized decision-makers from the political environment, on the subject of the reform of the magistrates' pension system.

Judge Claudiu Drăgușin compared Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan to a butcher, after the head of the Government announced the proposals regarding the amount of pensions and the retirement age of magistrates.

Alin Ene also criticized Bolojan's proposals regarding the reform of service pensions, accusing the prime minister of lying and defiance.

Judge Ene also had a harsh reaction to Deputy Prime Minister Oana Gheorghiu, after she stated in an interview that special pensions are “a kind of Caritas” that the Romanian state cannot afford. Alin Ene accused Oana Gheorghiu of inciting hatred against a social category.

Judge Ene was the one who publicly thanked the head of the CSM, Elena Costache, after she claimed that a pension of approximately 11,300 lei is insufficient, and the independence of magistrates depends on money, and denounced “insults, invectives, expletives thrown in public space”.

About his colleagues who appeared in the Recorder documentary “Captured Justice”, Alin Ene stated that they are “former magistrates with a clear disciplinary history, definitively sanctioned”