One of the 200 protesting magistrates, a judge from the Covasna Court, explains to a member of the CSM “why I am deeply outraged”

Judge Liviu Cîrneciu from the Covasna Court is one of the 200 magistrates who initiated a list on Thursday in which they say that “truth and integrity should not be sanctioned, but protected”. Cîrneciu entered into a dialogue on Facebook on Thursday with judge Alin Ene, member of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM).

• “The CSM has the obligation to defend the independence of all magistrates, including those who denounce irregularities within the system, not to discredit them”, wrote judge Liviu Cârneciu to his colleague judge Alin Ene, from the CSM.

Judge Alin Ene, a member of the CSM, published a post on Facebook on Thursday in which he says that lately in the public space we are witnessing a “simplistic and aggressive narrative” to make the judiciary seem “captured, abusive, controlled from the inside”. In his message, the CSM member says that those who have come out publicly to talk about the problems in the judiciary are magistrates who have been sanctioned in the past for disciplinary reasons.

The CSM member accuses, among other things, the lack of evidence in the Recorder documentary. He says the purpose of the material is to “manipulate public emotion.”

“You claim that there is no evidence, although the framework in which such evidence could be identified has not even been initiated”

In the comments section of the post, the judge from the Covasna Court Liviu Cîrneciu tells Alin Ene that he is “deeply outraged by your message, as well as by the position of the Superior Council of Magistracy”. Judge Cîrneciu is one of the 200 magistrates who on Thursday evening initiated a public list of protest against the situation in the Romanian judiciary.

“We, the magistrates, have the same right as any other citizen to know whether the information presented in this investigation is true or not. Do not invoke the support of the entire professional body, or at least the presidents of the courts, because it does not exist on this topic. The en bloc denial of all accusations, without concrete verification, is tantamount to pre-judgment. You claim that there is not even evidence, although the framework in which this evidence could not be initiated identified, verified or refuted”, the judge sent to Ene.

Liviu Cîrneciu says that Ene's message does not respond to any of the accusations in the Recorder documentary: “He is just trying to move the discussion to the ground of an alleged coordinated campaign against justice.”

“The material features magistrates, some still in office, others retired, who describe precise procedures, situations and people within the system (DNA, CSM, CAB, ÎCCJ). To reduce all these accounts to “emotion served on a tray”, “simplistic narrative” or “isolated frustrations” means, practically, the disqualification from the start of any magistrate who has the courage to express his concern”, Cîrneciu claims.

“The SCM has the obligation to defend the independence of all magistrates”

The judge from Covasna says that the simple fact that there are criticisms made by former magistrates who also had disciplinary violations “does not cancel either the relevance or the seriousness of the information presented by them or by others”.

“A journalistic investigation does not automatically become a form of coordinated pressure just because it is published at a sensitive moment. Every time possible irregularities are reported by a magistrate, including through the media, the natural reaction is not the public disavowal of the person reporting them, but the initiation of legal verification procedures by the Judicial Inspectorate, followed, at the end, by a position of the SCM based on the results of these checks. The SCM has the obligation to defend the independence of all magistrates, including those who denounce irregularities within the system, not to discredit them”, the judge tells CSM member Alin Ene.

He believes that the proper response of the SCM should not be to attack the media and magistrates who talk about irregularities, but to point-by-point fact-checking, to discover what is true, what should be clarified publicly and what action should be taken.

“I mention that, until now, I have not been disciplined”, Cîrneciu concludes his message.

200 magistrates started an initiative

“Truth and integrity must not be sanctioned, but protected”, is the message sent Thursday evening by 178 judges and prosecutors, most of them active, a small part of them retired.

The magistrates declare their solidarity with the magistrates who made the revelations in the Recorder documentary and with judge Raluca Moroșanu, who on Thursday, during the press conference at the Bucharest Court of Appeal, spoke in front of her superiors and supported her colleagues who spoke in the Recorder documentary.

In their message, published on social networks, judges and prosecutors say that “silence is not an option when the values ​​of the profession are at risk.”