Update: Judges in Cluj suspend activity, start procedure to dismiss the CSM members. Five Prosecutor’s Offices also suspend activity

One day after magistrates had announced they will stop working in protest against the recently adopted emergency ordinances that are amending the justice laws, the judges in Cluj suspended their activity while starting procedure to revoke the members of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM).

The General Assembly of the Cluj Tribunal has decided on Friday morning to protest for half of hour and to also suspend their entire activity as of Monday for a week. They also want to start procedure to revoke the CSM members, judge Cristi Danilet announced.

„We’ll suspend our judiciary activity for one week starting February 25, the cases will be postponed, except for the urgent cases (files involving children, protection orders, suspension of administrative acts, etc),” said Danilet.

As for the revocation of the CSM members, the judges from Cluj argued that „the CSM members have denied to defend the professional reputation of the magistrates labeled as <rats> during the protest meeting in June 2018″.

“The CSM president issued a press release against the vote in the CSM plenary sitting. The CSM judges refuse to adopt measures to counter the adoption and the effects of the emergency ordinance no. 7/2019. We endorse the challenge in court of the procedure through which the leaderships of the Judiciary Inspection and of the section investigating crimes in the justice have been elected”, the Cluj judges said, while urging the CSM President and the had of state to notify the Constitutional Court over GEO 7, on the ground it is not constitutional.

The Prosecutor’s Office upon the Court in Constanta is joining the magistrates’ protests, deciding to suspend activity for three days. It has been the first prosecutor’s office in the country that takes such a decision.

Soon after, the prosecutors from the Prosecutor’s Office upon the Arges Tribunal have also decided to stop their activity for three days, covering only the emergencies, as well as the Prosecutor’s Office upon the Bucharest Tribunal, the Brasov Prosecutor’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office upon the Pitesti Court.