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IOHANNIS: Plumb and Shhaideh should have resigned or been removed from office
President Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday that ministers Rovana Plumb and Sevil Shhaideh, both subjected to anti-corruption investigations, should have resigned or been removed from office.
According to him, Justice Minister Tudorel Toader's approach to verifying the legality of a Government Decision is inadequate, with the head of state arguing that if he found that some things are not well clarified in the judiciary, he had to come up with an act to correct them.
"Minister Toader has confused his position now with the position of university professor or rector he had before. If we speak theoretically, then there can be a discussion on the competence of administrative litigation, constitutional litigation or other related issues about who is in charge of what in Romania. It is true that this discussion can be held, and if we are to remain in the purely theoretical area, there are some aspects that are interesting and important for many, but Mr. Toader is not a university professor at the moment, but minister of justice. So, in his capacity as minister of justice, if he found that certain things were not well clarified in the Romanian judiciary, he did not have to make theoretical statements, but had to come up with an act that corrected, for example, the Civil Procedure Code. Therefore, the minister's approach seems inappropriate to me," Iohannis said at the Cotroceni Palace.
According to the president, the cases of prosecutors' abuse should be resolved by the Higher Council of Magistrates, which deals with complaints of this kind, and by the policy in the field of justice.
Justice Minister Tudorel Toader said on Tuesday that the lawfulness of a Government Decision is verified by the judge specializing in administrative litigation rather than by the prosecutor.
"In principle, Government Decisions are infra-legal normative acts, as they say, under the law, in the hierarchy of normative acts. Governments may raise suspicions of legality. In this hypothesis, either it is a Government Decision or a ministerial order, verifying the lawfulness of infra-legal acts is done by administrative litigation. You know that many Government Decisions have been appealed to the administrative litigation courts in order to verify by the judge the legality of a normative act that is inferior to the law. So, in my opinion, the legality of a Government Decisions is not checked by the prosecutor, but by the judge specializing in administrative litigation," Toader said, commenting on the DNA's decision to investigate the issuance of a Government Decision in the Belina case.
President Klaus Iohannis on Tuesday night also said that the proposal for the head of state to be removed from the appointment procedure of the chief prosecutors is a fundamental mistake, motivating that it is only thanks to the President's presence in this procedure that Romania made it to have a consistent anti-corruption activity, with recognition at European and international level.
"I, personally, have spoken on this intention of so-called reform of the justice laws and clearly expressed my opinion that several points over there seem to me wrong and the approaches mistaken (...) There are too many points the ones directly targeted have to examine, these points are having to do with the Justice organisation, and yet two things do worry me a lot: the fact that they propose for the President to be removed from the chief prosecutors' appointment procedure, I find this fundamentally wrong, because it is only through the presence of the President in this procedure that Romania has come to have a consistent anti-corruption activity, recognised not only at European level, but also worldly, and the President, and I am not talking only about the person of Klaus Iohannis, but of Romania's President, is the warrantor that the anti-corruption fight is not politically subordinated," the president said at the Cotroceni presidential Palace.
He also said that the subordination of the Judicial Inspection (IJ) to the Ministry of Justice is paving way to the risk of a political pressure.
"The second issue making way in the so-called Justice reform is also deeply worrying to me, namely the proposal that the Judicial Inspection is not subordinated to the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) anymore, which according to the Constitution, is guaranteeing the independence of Justice, and put it under the wand of the Ministry of Justice, which is a fully political body and the fact that the current Justice Minister is not a member of a political party makes no change here. In principle, the government is a political institution, formed of politicians and the subordination of the Judicial Inspection to a minister obviously brings about a political pressure's risk upon the IJ," Iohannis asserted.
The president specified he had discussions with all institutional partners on this matter, adding that he has no signals whatsoever that the Judicial Inspection doesn't work.
"I have signals that various opinions exist and these opinions must be clarified, obviously, by those who are called to guarantee the independence of Justice, so by the CSM, and not by the politicians, who have nothing to do not even with having opinions there, in the Judicial Inspection," Iohannis concluded.