Courts of appeal and tribunals harshly criticize the new pay law and accuse politicians of only being interested in increasing their incomes
The presidents of the 16 appeal courts and the presidents of the 50 tribunals in the country sent press releases on Tuesday in which they criticize the draft law on the salaries of staff paid from public funds and accuse a “demonization” of the judicial system, conveying the possibility of actions “through all the means made available by law to support the stability of the judge's status and the independence of the judiciary”.
The draft law, published on Monday, provides that the salaries of magistrates will be capped, starting in 2027, at the current level. The initiative was criticized on Tuesday by both the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) and the General Prosecutor's Office.
In the press release signed by the presidents of the appeal courts, they claim that the draft of the new salary law “deliberately proposes the abolition and institutional reconfiguration by deprofessionalizing some essential areas and affirming dilettantism as a state policy”.
“The abolition, by politicians, of the principles that are the basis of the democratic rule of law, leads us to act by all the means provided by the law to support the stability of the judge's status and the independence of justice, the essence of judicial power, constitutionally guaranteed, in order to ensure the right of citizens to a fair trial, with the components that this concept includes, and the survival of the rule of law”, the court press release also reads.
“PNRR cannot substantiate the policies of population impoverishment”
The appeals courts say that the PNRR, where the salary law is a milestone of 700 million euros, “cannot substantiate the policies of impoverishing the population, because such a speech lacks the sense of the European Union's raison d'être organized around the need for prosperity of its members”.
The courts claim that “the judicial system has been stigmatized and demonized to mask economic deficiencies and distract attention from the real responsibility and real problems of society.”
“We appreciate that a state in which the judicial power is constantly attacked, being always blamed for the irresponsible and empirical exercise of power by the political decision-maker, can no longer be categorized as a democratic state in which the balance between the three powers is respected, but a state in which chance is created to impose imposture as a socio-political and cultural benchmark”, according to the statement.
“An unprecedented slip in a democracy”
In their statement, the presidents of the appeal courts also invoke “the state's debts to the judicial system”, an allusion to the salary lawsuits won by the magistrates, in solidarity with the positions expressed by the High Court and the SCM.
“The evaluation by the executive of the legality of final court decisions represents an unprecedented slippage in a democracy, which has the ability to pave the way for the abuse of the politician who thus cancels the principle of the separation and balance of powers in the state, acquiring the ability to arbitrarily and abusively intervene in any type of social relations, ignoring any final court decision”, claim the appeal courts.
They also said that “the dissemination of figures intended to cause panic among the population, regarding the state's debts to the judicial system, tends to determine the baseless culpability of judges for the problems faced by the economy, a consequence of the mistakes of the political factor, masking, at the same time, the real cause of budget deficits, but also the need to annihilate the judiciary”.
The courts say that the “only concern” of the Government was “increasing the salaries of dignitaries”
The presidents of the 50 courts in the country claim that the draft of the new salary law can have “catastrophic” consequences.
“The texts of the project will cause anomalies translated into different classifications of people depending on the date of promotion or recruitment in public positions so that situations will be reached where, as a result of promotion in grades or steps of seniority, salary rights will decrease”, the statement reads.
They claim that “the level of the proposed hierarchy coefficients violates the constitutional principle of equality between powers, without taking into account the constitutional role of the judicial power”, as well as that “the only concern of the initiators was to increase the salaries of dignitaries, although they call for moderation in spending public money”.
“The Presidents of the Courts in Romania reject the strategy openly assumed at the political level of continuous demonization of the magistrates to cover the inability of the executive power to improve the standard of living of the society and we draw public attention that we are no longer willing to accept irresponsible and humiliating attitudes, without foundation, on the part of the other powers”, added the presidents of the courts.
