The Ombudsperson has filed a constitutionality challenge with the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) related to the Government Emergency Ordinance (GEO) regarding the modification of some normative acts impacting the public procurement system.
"The Ombudsperson has filed a constitutionality challenge with the Constitutional Court of Romania regarding the provisions of article IV item 26 of the Government Emergency Ordinance No. 23/2020 regarding the modification and supplementation of some normative acts impacting the public procurement system. The Ombudsman has noticed, among other things, that the above-mentioned article of the GEO No. 23/2020 introduces a new disciplinary misconduct only for the judges participating in the panels specialized in public procurements, which discriminates them against the other judges," reads a press release of the Ombudsperson.
The Ombudsperson also mentioned that she doesn't doubt the need of adopting an urgent measures meant to improve and make more flexible the public procurement system, including by introducing shorter terms to allow the solving with celerity of the claims, but she believes that introducing such additional disciplinary misconduct only for the judges in public procurement panels cannot be reasonably justified.
Moreover, the Ombudsperson believes that there is no reasonable reasoning for having judges' misconduct cases regulated by a different law than the one regarding the status of judges.
"The status of judges and prosecutors is treated in the special laws, enacted in the concretisation of the constitutional norms that provide the magistrates with a special position within the various professional categories, defined by guarantees meant to ensure their independence and impartiality, which is needed in carrying out the act of justice, as a fundamental activity of the rule of law," reads the release.
On the other hand, the Ombudsperson found that the request for the approval of the Supreme Council of Magistrates was missing from the procedure of adoption of GEO No. 23/2020, which approval was necessary in observing the Constitution.
"In the end, considering the results of the national referendum of May 26 2019, even if it was just a consultative one, the Ombudsperson said the Government should refrain from adopting an emergency ordinance in the judiciary organisation field, since following the loyal consultation of the citizens with a right to vote, most of the participants with valid options (86.18 per cent) showed their agreement in this respect," added the Ombudsperson.
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