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Justice Minister Tudorel Toader said on Wednesday evening that he was not surprised by the decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), which admitted the notification filed by the Speaker of the Deputies Chamber on the existence of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the Public Ministry, on the one hand, and the Parliament, the High Court of Cassation and Justice and the other courts, on the other hand, concerning the cooperation protocols with the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) in 2009 and 2016.
"I confess that I, for one, was not surprised at today's decision of the Constitutional Court. Of course, I was expecting it too, as did many of us, those involved in one way or another in the act of justice, we were looking forward to it, but, I repeat, I was not surprised. Why is that? Because justice, we all know, is or is to be done under the law," Tudorel Toader said.
The Justice Minister added that the judiciary, whether prosecutors or judges, does not issue legal standards as law.
"We also know that the judicial bodies do not change the law, do not complete the law, do not confer judicial powers to other authorities," Tudorel Toader said.
In the opinion of the Justice Minister, the signatories of the protocols would have practically created procedural rules to try evidence in a criminal case, and would have also conferred criminal prosecution powers to a competent authority, but only on matters of national security, not in the field of common criminal law.
Tudorel Toader argued that the signatories "substituted" themselves to the legislator. "They amended the law, completed the law, added to the law, and thus triggered the conflict on which the Court ruled today," he said.
The minister posited a state of normality must be reached. "Normative normality, namely the work of lawmaking, of regulating, normality in the law interpretation and enforcement activity. Because only then do we give the vocation to what is exposed in the fundamental law, in the Constitution, the protection, the defense, the guarantee of the attributes, rights, fundamental freedoms of the person," said the dignitary.
He added that law interpretation and enforcement must be normatively but also practically ensured.
"We do not want the guilty perpetrators be allowed to escape, get rid of the rigors of criminal law, but neither you nor I nor any of us think we want in a European Romania in 2019 to accept the open, defiant violation of the law by precisely those in charge with interpreting it, enforcing it correctly," the minister said.
According to Toader, abuses must be "set right", because it is not enough just for CCR to affirm that it was a conflict of a constitutional nature.
"What do we do as a result of this conflict being found? Of course, in the future, the Prosecutor's Office will know that it is not allowed to do so any more, the High Court will know that panels must be formed, randomly constituted, but what do we do with the results, with the final sentences ruled based on protocols, let's say of prosecution, or panels illegally constituted? We certainly need to find the remedy, because I repeat, in a rule of law, you cannot tell the Romanian: 'Sir, this is it, the judges did not observe, but we ensure the stability of the legal relations or the criminal prosecution was done outside the criminal procedure, but we cannot do anything.' Yes we can adopt a legal regulation to correct the abuses committed in one case or another," said Tudorel Toader.
The Minister stressed that legal acts will be adopted in this respect. "As a minister, but obviously I am not the only one to decide, because Parliament can do it very well or the Government as a whole, we will adopt legal acts that will allow the correction of these abuses," said Tudorel Toader.
On Wednesday, CCR accepted the notification of the Speaker of the Deputies Chamber regarding the existence of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the Public Ministry on the one hand and Parliament, the High Court of Cassation and Justice and the other courts, on the other hand, concerning the protocols of collaboration with SRI in 2009 and 2016.
"The High Court of Cassation and Justice and the other courts, as well as the Public Ministry - the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice and the subordinate units - will verify in pending cases the extent to which a violation of the provisions occurred in terms of substantive competence and by the quality of the person of the criminal prosecution body and will order the appropriate measures," CCR specified.
The referral to CCR, submitted on 8 October, was signed by the Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Florin Iordache, after Liviu Dragnea (Deputies Chamber Speaker, ed.n.) delegated his duties on that day.
AGERPRES .
