Head of the Emergency Situations Department (DSU) Raed Arafat said today that the decision of the Bacau Court of Appeal overturning the Government Decisions on the extension of the state of alert is not final and that a top court ruling is needed to settle the matter.
Arafat made this statement during a press conference at the Victoria Palace of Government, in response to a question about several courts throughout the country having lately declared certain Covid restrictions illegal. On December 20 the Bacau Court of Appeal ruled that 22 decisions on the state of alert are illegal.
"We pursue public health measures. In my opinion, the public health measures enforced in Romania were reasonable and did not go over the top. We did not impose a months-long lockdown. Of course, there are various opinions on this and there's also a variety of opinions in the world of justice as well. And these challenges end up before various courts. Following the ruling of the Bacau court, we must now wait for the decision of the Top Court," he said, emphasizing that DSU has won a large part of the lawsuits it was a party to.
The health senior official pointed out that against the backdrop of the pandemic, the adopted measures are "correct in terms of public health" and that they were amended whenever the court found they were illegal.
"You are first and foremost following the decisions that are not final and then you no longer follow the final rulings. Many of the decisions that were not final were reversed by the Top Court. Some of them were sent back to court - I know of at least one case - because the judge panel was not correct, there was only one judge on the panel, instead of several, as due. (...) So this is not the final decision, we'll take the case further. If the final ruling states that something is not OK, we'll amend or adjust the regulation," said Raed Arafat.