Following general debates last week, the special committee led by former Justice minister Florin Iordache has started discussing the articles of the three justice laws.
Therefore, the special committee on the justice laws has voted on Monday an article of the Law 317/2004 on the Superior Council of Magistracy, according to which the Council takes over the responsibility of appointing and recalling the Supreme Court’s leadership, and the Romanian President is removed from this procedure.
The article will be correlated with the Law 303/2004 on the statute of magistrates, where the MPs also want to remove the President from the appointing procedure.
According to the new article Okayed in the Iordache committee, “the CSM sections have the following responsibilities on the career of the judges and prosecutors: it names and recalls the president, the vice-presidents and the section chairmen of the High Court of Cassation and Justice (Romania’s Supreme Court).”
The amendment has passed by 11 votes to 6.
At the same time, although the special committee had been scheduled to debate only the articles that had been declared unconstitutional, MPs were still tabling amendments to other articles.
However, the lawmakers of the committee have rejected several amendments filed by PSD senator Serban Nicolae, arguing the amendments are not confined in the Constitutional Court’s rulings.
Social Democrat senator Serban Nicolae has tabled several amendments, which arrived at the committee on Sunday at 23:00hr.
The special committee chairman Florin Iordache said that Nicolae’s amendments are welcome, but they exceed the latest rulings by the Constitutional Court.
However, Iordache reproached Nicolae that he had filed amendments to the justice laws at night, giving “homework” to do to the committee’s members.
“Mr. Serban Nicolae has tabled the amendments last night at 23:00hr (…) It seems fair to me, if Mr. Serban Nicolae is working at night and came to give us homework to do, to also say when he gave us this homework! The amendments were tabled last night at 23hr,” Iordache stated.