Romania’s Superior Council of Magistracy to notify Constitutional Court about conflict with the Govt.

The country’s Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) voted in a meeting today to notify the Constitutional Court (CCR) that, by adopting the the emergency ordinance bringing changes to the criminal laws, the Government has started a constitutional conflict with the justice system. President Klaus Iohannis presided the meeting, which came after the Government passed yesterday evening an emergency ordinance redefining the abuse of power and conflict of interest charges and partially decriminalizing them. The CSM president can notify the CCR about a constitutional conflict between the state’s authorities, when one of them, in this case the Executive, infringes upon the attributions and prerogatives of the other, in this case the Judiciary, Digi24.ro reports. The CSM had issued last week a negative opinion on the draft emergency ordinances granting pardon to several categories of convicts and amending the criminal laws. Romania’s General Prosecutor had said that adopting the two bills would lead to the reconsideration of the positive aspects from the European Commission's Cooperation and Verification Mechanism report. President Iohannis said after this morning’s CSM meeting that “the constitutional conflict is evident” and that justice is independent. “I leave [this meeting] pleased, because I was able to see first of all solidarity inside the CSM, with the CSM president, and from the talks with the CSM members I could see that practically the entire system is on the CSM’s side. Justice in Romania is independent, and the magistrates are indignant about the way the government treated this very sensitive issue, the issue of changing the criminal law through an emergency ordinance, at night, without notice. It is important to see that this conflict exists and that the CCR is notified. CCR has the liberty to cancel this ordinance. The problem is that the government cannot do things this way, the way that it did,” Iohannis said, quoted by Digi24.ro. According to a point of view issued by the CSM, the passing of the emergency ordinance without consulting and receiving a notice from the CSM is a “serious overlooking of legal dispositions concerning the notice and the point of view that the CSM had the legal empowerment to grant.” Prior to this morning’s CSM meeting, president Iohannis referred to the situation created by the passing of the emergency ordinance as “inadmissible, unacceptable, a mockery,”