Former judge Cristi Dănileţ asks President Nicușor Dan to intervene promptly after revelations regarding dysfunction in the judiciary.
In an open letter, he asks the head of state to urgently convene the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM), preside over the meeting, and request disciplinary and criminal investigations for the „serious issues” exposed by magistrates and highlighted in the Recorder documentary.
Dănileţ asks the president to publicly support the honest magistrates and to be firm with those who "have deviated from the mission of the system."
In a message posted on Facebook, Cristi Dănileţ tells the president that he has the obligation to act immediately to restore confidence in the judicial system. "Mr. President Nicuşor Dan, here is what you have to do: urgently convene CSM, attend and preside over the meeting, request disciplinary and criminal investigations for the serious issues in justice," says the former magistrate.
Dănileţ lists the dysfunctions that he says "brave" magistrates have been signaling since 2017, and the Recorder report has now brought them to the forefront:
- preferential allocation of cases,
- orders given to prosecutors to resolve certain cases,
- delegations and detachments "with dedication,"
- abusive disciplinary investigations,
- CSM decisions made "in violation of the law,"
- illegally reopening criminal cases,
- fully resuming investigations in high-stakes cases following changes in the panel,
- lack of cases involving corrupt magistrates,
- unjustified delays in justifying decisions,
- statute of limitations on cases.
The former judge asks the head of state to send a clear signal to the body of magistrates: "Remind the honest magistrates that you stand by them, acknowledge their merits and constant efforts!"
At the same time, he requests to firmly sanction the deviations: "Be strict with those who have deviated from the mission of the justice system... those who cunningly interpret the law to protect criminals are accomplices to illegalities."
Dănileţ emphasizes that the judiciary is "a noble profession," but the few magistrates who have compromised it must be removed from the system. "This situation has been going on for 8 years. It's enough," he concludes the letter addressed to the president.
Nicușor Dan had a first public reaction following the documentary made by Recorder, which exposes the octopus in Justice, a corrupt system, and a captured state power. "The easiest thing is to revolt, once again, and blame generically. It is even harder to actually solve the problems in justice," stated the head of state.
In a two-hour documentary by Recorder journalists about the Justice system in Romania, a series of testimonies from within the justice system detail how the phenomenon of recent years, where major corruption cases are systematically buried, has come about.
The Recorder documentary shows how, in addition to decisions by the Constitutional Court and the High Court that have favored the prescription of facts in many corruption cases, this phenomenon has been perpetuated through a series of lesser-known judicial artifices: judges removed from panels during trials to be relieved even though they did not request relief, judges whose delegation suddenly ended, although they wanted to continue and had solutions to pronounce in important cases, judges detached to various cozy positions just before pronouncing solutions in important cases. Such changes have favored the dragging of cases and consequently the prescription of facts.