Rule of law

CSO representatives met during the visit and explained that transparency was not the only issue affecting the country, but that it was part of a more systemic problem, namely– the lack of maturity in democratic institutions. They described how Romania had only lived through 30 years of democracy, which could explain a resurgence of autocratic practices in the form of a lack of transparency, the adoption of legislation without consultation, and pressure on the judiciary.

Although diverging positions were expressed, many representatives of the CSOs and of the legal profession felt that the authorities had embarked upon a worrying trend towards interference in the judiciary. Examples mentioned were the incentives offered to judges to retire, the additional qualification requirements for judges, and the increased number of judges required to hear a case, promotion no longer being based on objective criteria, and insufficient time allowed to conclude cases, which were all slowing down the judiciary or rendering it ineffective.

According to representatives of the governing party, who had helped introduce the reforms, and some CSO representatives, the changes had been proposed to address earlier shortcomings and mostly to respond to rulings of the Constitutional Court. According to them, the reform proposals had been debated widely, and the authorities did not violate any rules during the reform, although they could have explained it better. The representatives of the governing party indicated that the Constitutional Court always checked compliance with international obligations, and therefore the new laws fulfilled all the requirements made by the Venice Commission, the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) of the Council of Europe, etc. They contended that the European Commission’s evaluations in the 2018 Report on Progress in Romania under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism were politically motivated.