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Justice Minister Catalin Predoiu held today bilateral talks via video conference with European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova, and with Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders; the European officials thanked on this occasion for Romania's active involvement in supporting the upcoming Rule of Law mechanism.
"The European officials thanked Romania for its active involvement in supporting the new Rule of Law mechanism and mentioned that the first report on this subject will be released at the end of September. Vera Jourova said that a visit to Bucharest could be possible, to discuss the conclusions of the Report on Romania, as well as aspects related to the implementation of the CVM recommendations, including with Romanian lawmakers. Commissioner Reynders mentioned the importance of including the rule of law conditionality in the new Multi-annual Financial Framework, emphasizing that the aim of the EC is to restore mutual trust between member states. He also said that the digitization of the judiciary is a priority of his term," the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
The two high representatives of the European Commission specified that they are open to cooperation with the Romanian authorities, in order to ensure the sustainability, stability and transparency of the justice reform process in Romania.
After years of sustained progress that turned Romania into a champion of judicial reforms at EU level, we have seen an obvious setback in the last 3 years. Reforms must be resumed and trust in state authorities must be restored, said Vice President Jourova.
Minister Predoiu presented the objectives of the Ministry of Justice for the next period: ensuring the independence of the judiciary, finalizing bills to amend the justice laws, strengthening the functioning of prosecutor's offices and relaunching the fight against corruption and organized crime.
"Dialogue and cooperation with the European Commission are good. Today's talks with Vice President Jourova and Commissioner Reynders have shown that we share the same vision on recent developments, but also on the ways to follow for setting the judiciary back on track. We will continue to support the Rule of Law mechanism, which will gradually ensure the same level of exigency for the quality of justice in all member states. We agreed that the evaluation/monitoring overlaps in the judiciary should be gradually removed, and that all member states should be assessed according to the same standards. The prerequisite for this is represented by concrete results," Predoiu declared.
The JusMin added that he will put up for public debate the "mending" of the Justice laws, after the interventions from 2017-2018.
"The laws need mending after the interventions from 2017 - 2018, the personnel structures need to be financed and complemented, including as regards registrars, and logistical conditions need improvement. This is an immediate program, but also in a longer term, which requires not only work from everybody, but patience as well. The Justice Ministry will put up for public debate and will subsequently table to Parliament the necessary laws; right this autumn it will take all the steps to 'inject' the necessary amounts into the system's logistics. Justice requires work and patience, whether we are talking about an investigation, a court trial, or about rebuilding an entire system. Those who are impatient do not actually trust the future of the system. Restarting an entire system, restoring the morale and the expertise of a system requires work and patience. Those who want results overnight ignore what has happened in recent years, but also ignore the current context. I trust the system and I will support it to regain confidence and the citizens' respect. The wrong steps can be straightening, the effort is continuous, but takes time," said Catalin Predoiu.
