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Several Romanian courts announced that they are suspending courtroom activities to protest the imminent repeal of special pensions for magistrates.
Thus, Romania's largest courts - the Bucharest Court of Appeal and the Bucharest Court - will suspend their activity as of Wednesday.
The Bucharest Court said it will judge only the urgent cases, specifically the criminal cases with preventive measures, and civil cases involving minors (protection order, emergency placement, international child abductions) and the provisional suspension of writs of execution.
Other courts to join the protest and which announced the suspension of trials are: the Suceava Court of Appeal, the Timis Court of Appeal, the Cluj Court of Appeal, the Craiova Court of Appeal, the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal, the Satu Mare Court, the Iasi Court.
The Judicial Inspection argues that the bill providing for the abolition of special public service pensions "brutally" violates the principles of the independence and immovability of judges, as well as articles of the Constitution and ECHR provisions. The judges and prosecutors of the Judicial Inspection have adopted a point of view regarding the bill about to be discussed in Parliament, and which provides for the removal of special pensions.
According to the Judicial Inspection, the bill is in breach of the provisions of Art. 53 of the Romanian Constitution, as the measure of scrapping the special pensions of judges and prosecutors cannot be termed as provisional/temporary, but only as "an abusive experiment in relation to the judicial authority".
The Chamber of Deputies will meet in extraordinary session on January 28 to debate a bill that scraps special public service pensions.
