English
The National Union of Romanian Bar Associations (UNBR) asks the competent authorities to notify the Constitutional Court in relation to GEO 115/2023, by which the Government decided to postpone the payment of salary rights earned by budgetary staff or the payment in installments for certain categories of civil servants. The normative act is strongly contested by judges, prosecutors and auxiliary staff, who decided to block the activity of all courts in our country. UNBR believes that the CCR must establish the existence of a constitutional conflict between the Government and the judicial authority.
In a press release issued yesterday, UNBR states: "On January 15, 2024, UNBR addressed a memorandum to the competent authorities - the President of Romania, the Prime Minister of Romania, the President of the Superior Council of the Magistracy, the President of the Chamber of Deputies and the President of the Senate - requesting them that, based on the prerogatives provided by art. 146 lit. e) from the Constitution and art. 34 of Law 47 /1992, to notify the Constitutional Court of Romania in order to ascertain the existence of a constitutional conflict between the Government of Romania, on the one hand, and the judicial authority represented by the Superior Council of the Magistracy, on the other. Since the beginning of these protests, UNBR has sent to the authorities and publicly communicated an open letter in which it states that it recognizes and supports the legitimacy of the demands of judges, prosecutors and auxiliary staff and considers unacceptable the disregard by other powers of the state of the rights established by court decisions definitive, by thwarting their application".
According to the quoted document, the position expressed publicly by UNBR and the call addressed to the Government and the judicial authority "were not likely to lead to the solution of the reported problem, so that the beginning of 2024 is still affected by the blockage of the judicial system, without a solution expected concrete for resuming the activity of all courts".
The representatives of the Union specify: "UNBR, as a legal person of public interest, has the obligation to promote and defend the rights and freedoms of citizens, in particular the right to a fair trial, resolved within a reasonable time, on behalf of lawyers. In the light of this desire, UNBR appreciates that, as long as the institutional dialogue was not likely to lead to the solution of the situation, the only legal approach that can have the effect of resolving the divergent issues between the executive authority and the judicial authority is the referral to the Constitutional Court in order to dissolve a possible constitutional conflict".
The lawyers show, in the Memorandum, that, starting from June 2023, "the judicial system was seriously disrupted as a result of the protests triggered by the courts, which decided to postpone the trial of all cases considered not to be urgent, as well as the postponement of the preliminary procedures fixing the first trial term in these cases".
"At the moment, the activity of the majority of courts and tribunals in the country is affected following the protest measure adopted by decisions of the general assemblies in December 2023 and maintained by the decisions adopted in January 2024", the document states.
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