The President of the Venice Commission, Gianni Buquicchio on Tuesday appealed to Romanian authorities and political parties to fully observe the independence of the Constitutional Court and refrain from pressures. He added that, the previous day, he received fresh information from the CC about this issue, after vocing last month concerns over the “attempts to exercise pressure on the Constitutional Court of Romania and to undermine its independence.” “Yesterday I received additional information from the Court about continuing pressure and threats against individual judges. It is a general principle of the rule of law that pressure on any court, whether constitutional or ordinary, in order to influence its decisions is inadmissible. In recent years the Venice Commission has sometimes had to intervene in order to protect the independence of a constitutional court in a new democracy. It is for me surprising, and even shocking, that for the second time in a short period of time the constitutional court of a member state of the Council of Europe and the European Union feels obliged to appeal to the Venice Commission in order to protect its independence”, says Buquicchio. “I appeal to all state authorities and political parties of Romania to fully respect the independence of the Constitutional Court and to refrain from exercising pressure. As regards threats against individual judges, I expect that the Romanian authorities will protect the judges concerned and their families and take all necessary steps to bring the authors of such threats to justice”, declared the president of Venice Commission. In her turn, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Viviane Reding yesterday denounced the continuation of political pressure on the Constitutional Court of Romania, according to AFP quoted by Mediafax. Viviane Reding posted on Twitter the criticism made by the president of the Venice Commission and agreed to what Gianni Buquicchio said.
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