SCM must be out of ‘any suspicion’

The Superior Council of Magistracy has appointed its new leadership. Thus, it has taken over the six years mandate, in spite of the calls made by President Băsescu and the Minister of Justice, Cătălin Predoiu, to postpone the constitution of the Council until after January 19, when the Constitutional Court would make a decision regarding the appeals against some of the members.

The new president of the Superior Council of Magistracy, Horaţius Dumbravă, states that SCM itself must be beyond any suspicion and conflict of interests, and that is why he proposes, for his managerial plan, that the members should sign a declaration of integrity.

Through this, the SCM members would resign from the leadership positions in courts and court offices, as well as those who are members of professional associations and NGOs.

Also, Horaţius Dumbravă wants the current members of the SCM to commit themselves not to run for a new term and that during the mandate they wouldn’t promote to executive jobs or jobs for the Supreme Court.

On the other hand, the new head of the SCM states he does not agree with the allegations made about the judicial system, related to Romania’s accession to the Schengen area.

‘Joining the Schengen area is not subject to meeting the conditions mentioned in the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, jointly established by the Romanian Government and the European Commission, conditions which, however, the current SCM embraces and would make any institutional efforts to accomplish them. The mechanism clearly needs to be upgraded and that will be a primary goal for the new SCM, Horaţius Dumbravă declared.

In his turn, the new vice president of the Council, George Bălan, presented the measures that the current leadership of the SCM will take in the near future.

‘In the next period of time, an evaluation of the Council’s activity will be conducted, going from the desire to optimize its operation to making every member of the Council responsible on different areas of activity. It is also intended, through a frank and direct dialogue, to optimize the relationships with the other state powers, so that working with them would be based on an open message of cooperation’, George Bălan declared.

The Minister of Justice, Cătălin Predoiu, admitted that the new SCM is legally constituted, but said that there still has a threshold to pass, namely the verdict of the Constitutional Court, which can change the structure of the SCM. He said he expects this SCM to be more severe when magistrates are breaking the law.

‘We need a new council, one that is much more demanding in terms of system integrity and its sanctions, a council which is more flexible, more creative in the relationship with the executive and the legislative and a council which is much more present in the dialogue with the European Commission, to be able to explain all the measures we take, the difficulties we have, the results, the realities in our justice system, so that we can produce an accurate report on the progresses of justice’, Cătălin Predoiu declared.

The Superior Council of Magistracy is the forum to manage the careers of judges and prosecutors, more precisely, it proposes appointments and promotions, gives disciplinary sanctions to magistrates or defends them when they are unjustly accused of something.

Who is Horaţius Dumbravă?

The new head of the Superior Council of Magistracy is one of the once critic voices with respect to the activity of SCM so far.

He is part of a group of young judges who claim that want to bring changes in this area.

Judge Horaţius Dumbravă is 39 and has been elected member of the new Superior Council of Magistracy by the Courts of Appeal.

He has been President of the Court of Appeal in Târgu Mureş, having previously been a judge at the Mureş Court of Law and the Târgu Mureş Local Court.

Together with Judges Adrian Neacşu and Cristi Danileţ, Horaţius Dumbravă is one of the magistrates who have repeatedly criticized the old SCM and want to reform the institution, with the help of the National Union of Judges in Romania and the Justice Society Association, more commonly known as SoJust.

Moreover, Horaţius Dumbravă is a founding member of the two associations and in 2006 and 2007 was president of SoJust, but presently he is not member of any professional association or NGO.

He ran for the Supreme Council of Magistrates on the same project with Adrian Neacşu and Cristi Danileţ.

They are now all members of the SCM. The three were among the magistrates who protested when the SCM did not sanction judges Cristian Jipa and Florin Costiniu from the High Court, charged in the file where the SDP senator Cătălin Voicu is accused of taking bribe to intervene on behalf of his clients.

Horaţius Dumbravă has been working in the magistracy for 14 years.

Translated by: Manuela Stancu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University