The workload for a judge of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) last year was almost 900 cases at a time that the usual average previously was 400-450 cases. The workload of temporarily transferred judges doubled due to chain resignations of SCJ judges in the spring of 2023. Thus, the new procedural provisions, the period of adaptation of the new judges and also the period of the election campaigns made the judges to examine only urgent cases, while other cases were postponed. The statements were made by representatives of the SCJ and the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) following public discussions, IPN reports.
According to the presented data, 9,701 cases were registered at the Supreme Court of Justice in 2023. Of these, 6,209 were civil, insolvency and administrative cases, while 3,492 were criminal cases. As many as 2,817 civil cases and 1,625 criminal cases of them were examined in 2023. The others are overdue and are expected to be examined by the end of 2024.
SCM interim president Sergiu Caraman said that although the number of cases tried in 2023 was twice lower than in 2022, last year there were twice fewer judges at the SCJ than in 2022 and this is not negligible. Also, there was a period of adaptation of judges transferred from ordinary courts.
According to him, a solution to deal with the heavy workload at the SCJ is to announce a competition to transfer additional judges to the Supreme Court and the cases to be examined expeditiously.
As for the temporary transfer to the SCJ, Sergiu Caraman said that the SCM will appoint 11 main judges to the SCJ and the tenure of the temporarily transferred judges will end then. “The SCM aims to appoint the best specialists in the field to the SCJ because the SCJ will be the court that will set the tone of justice in our country and we are aware that the best judges and the best non-judges must be there at the SCJ. And this process can take time because we don’t know how many of the candidates will pass the vetting and we don’t know how good specialists will be there among those who will pass it,” said the interim CSM president.
SCJ caretaker president Aliona Miron said that there are 11 judges at the court and they consider that not even the 20 judges required by law are enough. “According to our estimates, judging by the way things stood previously and by their current state, we need 28-30 judges. Either we like it or not, we keep this specialization anyway because it seems to me that the act of justice is much more efficient and professional when a judge specializes separately in criminal cases and civil cases. Unfortunately, the law does not provide for this, but it is the right of the plenum to constitute these panels,” stated Aliona Miron.
In the near future, the Supreme Court of Justice will think up criteria that will allow litigants to better understand the procedure for examining pending cases, as well as criteria that will determine the prioritization of the way cases are examined.
