Prosecutor Horodniceanu: CCR has placed prosecutor's offices under discretionary power of JusMin

Chief prosecutor of the Directorate for Investigating of Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) Daniel Horodniceanu believes that by its latest ruling, the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) actually placed the prosecutors not under the authority, but under the discretionary power of the minister of justice, who is either a politician or enjoys political support. 

"By today's decision, the Constitutional Court has actually placed the prosecutor's offices not under the authority but under the discretionary power of the minister of justice, who is either a politician or enjoys political support. The constitutional guarantor of judicial independence, the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM), was reduced to a barren role, invited to be an extra," Horodniceanu told AGERPRES. 

He said that the consultative opinion of the CSM Prosecution Section "is useless" if at the end of the decision-making chain lies only the President's obligation to respect the minister's decision. 

"It is a logical aberration if we want an independent judiciary. In this consecration of the interpretation of the law, the demarcation line between the state powers is being erased to the detriment of the independence of a part of the judicial authority, the prosecutor magistrates. This also calls into question the binding character of the CCR decision," said Horodniceanu. 

The Constitutional Court of Romania found on Wednesday that there is a conflict between the state powers in the case of the refusal by the President to remove from office chief anti-graft prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi. CCR mentioned that after the ruling is out, the President is to issue a decree to fire Kovesi, because there is legal conflict of a constitutional nature caused by the refusal of the head of state to heed the call for Kovesi's removal from office.