The delay in the extraordinary assessment of judges and prosecutors is also due to the people from the system, who put up resistance to the reform, said PAS MP Olesea Stamate. According to her, the pre-vetting and vetting are processes that last both for technical reasons and because of the resistance put up by the system. For his part, jurist Vlad Gribincea said the extraordinary assessment of judges should be completed by the end of the current legislature as the new legislative body that will be formed after the parliamentary elections of 2025 could oppose this reform, IPN reports.
The head of the Parliament’s legal commission for appointments and immunities admitted that the pre-vetting lasts longer than the government projected. A part of the blame is borne by the people from the system, who put up resistance to the reform.
“There are two reasons. One reason is objective and is related to the technical side, the preparation of the legislation for this assessment. Each of the assessed laws was appraised by the Venice Commission at least twice and this takes at least half a year. The other reason is the delays inside the system. We didn’t expect that the system will oppose. Therefore, we included in the law provisions that will limit such delays. Regrettably, not all things worked as we wanted. You saw what happened at the General Assembly of Judges in spring and we do not yet have decisions taken by the Supreme Court of Justice. The first challenges were filed back in January,” Olesea Stamate stated in the program “Secrets of the Power” on JurnalTV channel.
Vlad Gribincea, of the Legal Resources Center, said the extraordinary assessment of judges and prosecutors should be completed under the PAS government. About 500 judges and prosecutors are to be assessed until the parliamentary elections of 2025.
“The vetting process cannot last endlessly. It should be performed one time. The institutions should be reformed and they should later work by themselves. We also want all the persons to be assessed according to the same criteria. There is a risk that there will be another political conjuncture in the future Parliament and many of those who today criticize can come to power and then the vetting will be ceased at half-way. That’s why it was decided to assess as many people as we can, about 400-500, during two years and a half,” stated the jurist.
On July 25, the pre-vetting commission said that it finished the extraordinary assessment of the 18 candidates who applied for the post of member of the main self-managing body of prosecutors – the Superior Council of Prosecutors. After examining the financial situation and moral uprightness of the candidates, the pre-vetting commission announced that eight candidates passed the integrity assessment, while ten candidates didn’t pass the integrity assessment.
