“The prolonged protest of the magistrates raises a fundamental and deeply uncomfortable question.” How some lawyers try to stop the protest of judges and prosecutors

Several lawyers react against the backdrop of magistrates and asks them to unlock the conflict. On the communication groups, lawyers prepare strategies: from the organization of protest actions, to court actions requesting the annulment of the general decisions of August by which the judges have triggered the action of protest, several lawyers from the country said for Hotnews. Such an action was submitted since last month to the Cluj Court of Appeal, but the trial is delayed, the judges formulating requests for abstention.

• Starting with August 26, almost all the courts and prosecutor's offices have decided to suspend the activity until the Bolojan Government project to amend the magistrate's pension system. During the protest, only the causes considered urgent are solved. In all other files, the judgment, respectively the activity of criminal prosecution is postponed or suspended for an unlimited term.

• Also on Wednesday, the CSM leadership launched new criticisms of the government, accusing the “climate of hostility created against the magistrates, through positions of the political factor and through media campaigns that aimed to discredit its judicial system and to blame it for the economic and social situation in which Romania is”.

• “The continuation of this form of protest, in the constitutional control phase, risks transforming the guard himself into a pressure factor, undermining the principles that he is called to defend them. And the public confidence, once lost, is much harder than a special right to retirement”, draws the lawyer Adrian Zandomeni from Timișoara, in a public appeal.

Against the background of this blockage, extended by the postponement of the Constitutional Court's decision regarding the pensions of the magistrates, the dissatisfaction has escalated, especially since there is no unitary practice in the country regarding the causes that are solved during this period of protests. In certain counties, some files are judged, in others, similar species are postponed. An example is the case of cancer patients, whose open processes for obtaining free treatment treatments have been suspended by some courts of appeal, while others judged them.

In this context, some lawyers say that they have become the “lightning of the dissatisfaction” because the citizens they represent are asking for explanations.

In the last days, more and more voices from lawyers have reacted, claiming that they can no longer exercise their profession and that confidence in justice will have more and more to suffer if the blockage continues.

“Isn't this action a form of direct pressure on the Constitutional Court?”

Lawyer Adrian Zandomeni from Timișoara launched a public call to magistrates, asking them to give up the protest.

“No one can challenge, with honesty, that the magistrates have been, in recent years, the target of constant pressures. They have complained, for good reason, of concerted media attacks and political interference that have tried to undermine their independence. They have defended the rule of law and, for this, it is worth respect.

But, that is why the prolonged protest we are witnessing today raises a fundamental and deeply uncomfortable question: when a form of protest, no matter how legitimate in its intentions, does it become a form of pressure on the act of justice? When the magistrates block the activity of the courts in defense of their own interests does not exercise the same type of pressure that they once condemned? Is this not a form of direct pressure on another court, the Constitutional Court? ”, Lawyer Zandomeni wrote on his blog.

In a dialogue with Hotnews, Andrian Zandomeni said that “frustration among citizens is maximum” and emphasizes the dissatisfaction that people had already for justice.

“The world is dissatisfied because the system works slowly. There are situations, a divorce, for example, which is a simple cause, where it lasts until a year until the first court is set. We are an intermediary who must explain to people that we have no guilt that the system goes. At a trial or motivation of a sentence, ”Adrian Zandomeni told HotNews.

The lawyer from Timisoara believes that the magistrates could use the protest as a weapon of disagreement with the law of pensions for which the Government assumed responsibility in Parliament during the public debate. Now, when the law is on the table of the Constitutional Court, any external pressure is toxic to a correct analysis process, Zandomeni believes.

“For the citizen, a successive postponement of the terms and a piece of life put on hold”

“Behind this conflict of principles lies, silent and ignored, the ordinary justice. For him, a successive postponement of the terms is not a negotiation strategy, but a piece of life put on waiting. A blocked business, an imprisoned inheritance, a family that lives in uncertainty. Zandomeni, emphasizing that “the image and credibility of the whole body of law professionals are eroded with each day of protest”.

The lawyer from Timisoara states that there is no provision in the procedure codes that allow judges to suspend cases on protest reasons.

In fact, in the last days in the internal communication groups of lawyers one of the strategies taken into account is the contest in administrative litigation of the general meetings of the judges, from August, through which protest actions have been triggered.

Lawyers consulted by Hotnews are skeptical about the success of such an approach. “They focus, they shake their heads,” exclaimed one of the lawyers, referring to the magistrates who should judge the decision they themselves voted.

A lawyer from Cluj is trying to cancel the magistrates protest in court

At the Cluj Court of Appeal, a lawyer initiated such an endeavor, but the way the process is carried out comes to strengthen the fears of lawyers.

Lawyer Claudiu Octavian Ulici sued the Cluj Court of Appeal on September 18, requesting the annulment of the judgment on August 26 of the general meeting of the judges of this court by which it was decided to postpone the judgment of the files (except for the emergencies) until the draft law on the reform of the service pensions will be withdrawn.

As such a process can extend for months, lawyer Ulici has opened an action in the role of the Cluj Court of Appeal, asking the court to suspend the effects of the decision on August 26. Basically, judges resume their activity.

The suspension process has had three deadlines so far, to which the magistrates have refrained, in turn, from the trial of the case, on the grounds that they voted for the decision in August.

In parallel, lawyer Ulici addressed the High Court of Cassation and Justice, requesting the relocation of the two processes from the Cluj Court of Appeal. The supreme court set a deadline to judge the requests of the lawyer from Cluj only at the end of October.

“Late justice = ineffective justice”

While in the bar in the country, strategies are discussed that lead to the unlocking of the protests, in Dolj some of the lawyers have triggered a spontaneous protest action, regarding the effects of the judicial system. It happened last week on October 3.

Dozens of lawyers came out in front of the bar, holding posters with messages such as “late justice = ineffective justice”, “lawyers want to work”, “the lack of dialogue is not a solution”.

“Regardless of the merits of the claims, a social pact is needed, a way of dialogue that will lead to the unlocking of the activity of justice because in a modern European state, in a rule of law, we are in the situation where one of the state powers works only at damage parameters,” he told the journalists present at the Protest Defanul Dolj.

A reaction came the last days from the lawyers from Iasi, who had a meeting with the leaders of the Court of Appeal and the Iasi Tribunal.

The purpose of the meeting was “to debate the consequences generated by the prolongation of the protest form adopted by the magistrates on the professional activity of the lawyers in Iași Bar, but also the effects it has on the society in general”, the management of the Iasi bar in a statement said.

“The chronic instability in the field of justice creates increasing problems and leads to major dissensions between the participants in the act of justice, whose consequences are particularly repeated on the rights of the citizens and put under the uncertainty the development of the activity of legal assistance”, the attention of the lawyers.

The leadership of the Superior Council of Magistracy reacted Wednes “He persevered in the attitude of defiance of the judicial authority”: “The aspects reported by the Council are still topical, as none of the cases that generated the reaction of the judicial system has been removed, as there is no concern regarding the impact of the political factor on the independence Independent and fully functional justice is indispensable for the other professionals of the law whose activity is convergent with the same objective of guaranteeing the rights and freedoms of citizens ”.

The reaction is registered in a series of criticisms launched by the SCM after the Bolojan Government initiated the draft modification of the magistrate's pension system, for which the Executive assumed his liability in Parliament on September 1. The project was stipulated that the changes would enter into force on October 1, but the law was appealed to the Constitutional Court by the Supreme Court.