Magistrates are discontent with the MPs intention to remove special pensions, with the Bucharest Court and Appeal and the Bucharest Tribunal deciding to suspend activity today and until the executive and legislative powers agree to stop actions to strip magistrates of their special pensions.
The law on removing special pensions will be debated in Parliament on January 28 after the Labour Committee of the Chamber of Deputies has already issued a favorable opinion on the draft to repeal special pensions.
In a press release, the Bucharest Court of Appeal argued that the repeal of the legal provisions enshrining the service pensions is breaking the independence of the magistrates and the Constitution. The same announcement has been made by the Capital Tribunal.
So, judges will solve only emergency case as of Wednesday, January 23, meaning only the cases involving children in civil matters and only files regarding preventive measures in criminal matters.
Some thousands files that should have been discussed only Wednesday will be therefore blocked indefinitely. Among them, there are also corruption files of former ANAF Head Sorin Blejnar or former mayor Cristian Poteras.
Judges and prosecutors have been protesting in the past weeks against the Gov’t intention to strip them of special pensions, arguing the provisions are incorrect and unconstitutional. Registrars (officers of the court) have also protested in December.
The National Liberal Party who came to power after the censure motion against PSD in November 2019 decided in December to cancel special pensions of magistrates, mayors and MPs, except for the military ones.
The average special pension is:
- RON 18,150 – judges and prosecutors
- RON 10,869 – aeronautical staff
- RON 7,744 – Court of Accounts
- RON 4,446 – public servant, MP
Out of those 9,312 non-military beneficiaries of special pensions, 5,818 received over RON 6,000/month, RON 4,046 over RON 10,000, 1,817-RON 20,000, 162 -over RON 30,000, 10-over RON 40,000.