The Minister of Justice, Catalin Predoiu, stated on Friday that the governing programme of the Ludovic Orban Government did not have the abolition of the Section for Investigating Magistrates (SIIJ) among its objectives, on the grounds that the Executive from that time had no support in Parliament.
“However, there are differences from the mandate of the Orban Cabinet. (…) The governing programme of the Orban Government, a program agreed with the partners of the respective coalition that supported this Government, the dismantling of the SIIJ was not among the objectives. One objective was indeed to draft the bill for the abolition of the Section but not the actual abolition, because at that time the Orban Government did not have a majority and we knew that we couldn’t have issued an emergency ordinance. These were the two milestones with which we set out. That goal was met. On February 2, 2020, the Ministry of Justice put up for public debate and sent a draft law to the CSM (Supreme Council of Magistrates),” Predoiu said, on the occasion of the ceremony where he took over the Minister of Justice portfolio from Lucian Bode.
He added that the abolition will be done in accordance with the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the decisions of the Supreme Council of Magistrates.
“The second notable difference is that in 2020 there was no majority, in 2021 there was a majority, today there is a majority. What we need to do is what is written in the governing programme and what was written for 2021, respectively to abolish this Section, as it is also written in the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM). And there are two other important landmarks regarding the SIIJ in the governing programme, namely that the abolition is done in accordance with the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the decisions of the CSM. Between these two landmarks, we must find the technical formula by which to achieve this goal of abolishing the SIIJ, for there is no question that we need to do it, there is no discussion on this topic, except in terms of technical means. Which is why we cannot give the technical solution today, although we have at our disposal and there are, at least from my point of view, even three options through which we can achieve this objective from a technical legislative point of view. But we cannot do it without discussing with the CSM first, with the magistrates’ associations, with the civil society, with our strategic partners, without taking into account the landmarks from the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it would be unprofessional,” said Catalin Predoiu.
Predoiu also stated that there was no political restraint on the part of former Prime Minister Ludovic Orban for the dissolution of the SIIJ.
“Also in 2020, I was criticized for not issuing the ordinance in order to abolish the SIIJ. This ordinance has not been issued until today. In 2020, I could not pass any law through Parliament. Otherwise, the Orban Government would have committed to this. There was no political hesitation in what concerns the abolition of the SIIJ from former Prime Minister Orban, the Government, the PNL,” Predoiu said, according to Agerpres.
Photo: Facebook/Catalin Predoiu
