New rules for the election of CSM leadership

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The Department for Judges of the Superior Magistracy Council has adopted ‘principles of legality and transparency’ to govern the election of its leaders following the scandal preceding the election of prosecutor Oana Schmidt-Haineala as CSM President.

The Department for Judges of the Superior Magistracy Council (CSM) decided during its meeting Tuesday night to urgently complete the Council Regulation with rules designed to clarify and detail the procedure for the designation of the leaders of the institution currently in progress (election of CSM vice president – a/n), luju.ro reports. Two such new rules are a prior debate in the Department for Judges on candidacies submitted for the position as vice president of CSM and a reasonable notice on that.  The members of the Department also proposed that the candidacy project should be made available on the Council website ’so that it can be consulted by the public at least three days before the plenary meeting electing the vice president of CSM’. He debate on the candidacy project will take place during the plenary meeting to which the candidacy is presented. According to Resolution no. 94 of the CSM Department for Judges, the new rules should improve relations between the Council and the exterior, as, in the opinion of the CSM judges, genuine transparency is required regarding those CSM activities with a major impact on the judicial system as well as the general public. The same document says a transparent procedure will lead to a ‘genuine feeling of belonging’ of the Council members while also strengthening the trust of both the public and members of the judiciary in the lawfulness and thoroughness of the election of the Council vice president. The proposals made by the CSM Department for Judges in the area of the election of the leaders of the Council are designed to avoid a repeat of what has happened in CSM in the last three weeks since prosecutor Oana Schmidt-Haineala became head of the institution. ‘The Department finds that regulations on the election of the leadership of the Council present shortcomings, reason fore which the Regulation must be completed as soon as possible with rules detailing the procedure for designating the CSM vice president in respect of submitting candidacy, project and notices. The Department also deems it necessary that principles of legality and transparency should be adopted, to become the basis of the procedure for the designation of the vice president of  CSM, in full consistency with the 2011-2016 justice integrity strengthening strategy’, the CSM resolution further reads.

CSM vice president elections in stand-by

On the other hand, although the election of the vice president of CSM should have been on the Council meeting agenda yesterday, such thing was improbable following the resolution on completing the Regulation of the institution. As a matter of fact, judge Cristi Danilet announced on Facebook that the vice president of CSM was not going to be elected during the CSM meeting yesterday. ‘We have a CSM plenary meeting scheduled for 3 pm. The vice president of CSM is not going to be elected tomorrow (today – a/n), because we have just issued today (Tuesday – a/n) a few minimum rules for transparency. I am convinced that next week we will finalise this procedure’, luju.ro quotes Danilet. This would be the forth postponement of the election of a CSM vice president. The procedure had to be started all over again after judges Alina Ghica and Cristi Danilet had withdrawn their respective candidacies for the office, in the context where a majority of court houses in the country voted to remove them from the Council.