In an open letter, several civic organizations are calling on President Klaus Iohannis to initiate public consultations before taking action based on the Constitutional Court ruling in the case of anti-corruption chief Laura Codruta Kovesi.
"Following the ruling handed down by the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) in case No. 589E / 2018 whereby six judges of the CCR panel have given the Minister of Justice discretionary power in removing from office magistrates in top positions and imposed the President of Romania to dismiss the chief prosecutor of the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA), the signatory organizations are calling on you to organize public consultations with both civil society organizations and political parties and professional organizations of the judiciary, to precede and help with designing the decisions and actions subsequent to the CCR decision. They must not look only at the dispute over the request to remove the DNA chief prosecutor from office, but they must also deal with the future fight against corruption, the independence of justice, the rule of law and the role of the Constitutional Court," reads the open letter cited in a statement of the Initiative Romania organization.
"We, the 37 signatory civic groups and organizations, consider the CCR ruling runs counter to law, to constitutional provisions and to the obligations pledged under the Cooperation and Verification and Mechanism and the EU Accession Treaty, and that it undermines the prerogatives of other state powers. Put briefly, the decision takes us back with ill-intent to the time of EU pre-accession, when the judiciary was fully subservient to political power, cases were opened or closed in party sittings at political orders, and the prosecutors were being probed and ousted from magistracy if they investigated political corruption," reads the letter.
At the same time, the signatories consider that the CCR is and must remain a fundamental institution in the constitutional architecture of the Romanian state, "an institution that must be respected, even if the actions of certain CCR members who used the institution for political interests or personal retaliation have now dented the Court's prestige and professionalism."
The Constitutional Court of Romania on Wednesday found there is a conflict between powers in the case of the President's rejecting the removal from office of DNA head Laura Codruta Kovesi. The President shall issue the decree to remove the DNA chief prosecutor from office, as a constitutional conflict was found, generated by the head of state's refusal to follow through with the dismissal proposal, the CCR said in a release on Wednesday.
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