The Romanian Constitutional Court published the reasoning behind its June 8 ruling, by which the Special Section for magistrates (SIIJ) can be dismantled only by the Parliament - and not by ordinary courts as argued by some of the magistrates and actually attempted by a county Court of Appeal already, G4media.ro reported.

Those arguing on the view that SIIJ can be dismantled by an ordinary court base their rhetoric on a ruling by which the European Union Court of Justice elaborated on several topics, including SIIJ.

Regarding SIIJ, the EUCJ provided guidelines to Romanian lawmakers for deciding whether SIIJ is really necessary or should be dismantled. Among them, the lawmakers recommended that such a judiciary body should address a real necessity.

The same EUCJ ruling elaborated about the priority of rulings taken by EU courts in front of national legislation, an element invoked by those arguing against SIIJ who extrapolate the logic to the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (that repeatedly highlighted the negative role of SIIJ due to its political bias).

The spirit of both MCV's and EUCJ's recommendations goes against the political control over judiciary bodies and not necessary for a particular given design of the system (with or without SIIJ). 

iulian@romania-insider.com

(PHoto source: Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea)