What a shameful day! This is the conclusion how Romania’s highest magistrates’ body reacted.
On Wednesday the High Court headed by Lia Savonea (link at the end) launched a smoke bomb agreement. On Thursday the Supreme Council of Magistrates headed by Elena Costache issued a press release which was no less ‘smoke-free’ than Savonea’s “agreement”.
The Supreme Council of Magistrates press release includes the following dubious elements:
- It tells the story of the negotiations held the day before, held by representatives of the magistrates, in Cotroceni presidential palace, with the head of state, the prime minister, and the representatives of the governing coalition. The press release however distorts reality. Reading it, you understand that the magistrates’ camp would do anything possible to unblock the situation, but the other camp isn’t opne to finding a solution.
- Then, a good part of the press release looks like an advertising billboard for Lia Savonea, in which the Supreme Council of Magistrates praises the unsellable product of the High Court of Cassation and Justice- you guessed it, the usual lines about stability in the judiciary. As they say: one hand washes the other and both dirty everything around them.
- From start to finish, the well-known slogans are inserted about how rational the magistrates’ claims are, about how precious the independence of justice is to them, about how they serve the country and its laws, about their noble mission and, you got it, about how wrong those who criticize them for their epic greediness are.
- The icing on the cake, however, in the press release, is something else: the statement that “there was no question of requesting a regulation that would lead to a pension higher than income”. The problem here is not the grain of truth that this statement contains, but the truth that the press release did not contain: ok, brothers, but what did you expect? Fortunately, for full public disclosure, the part that the magistrates omitted, was made clear by Csoma Botond, the ethnic Hungarian leader who clarified some things on Digi24: “They proposed that their pension be 65% of the last gross income, which means almost 98% of the last net income. It would basically mean that they would receive a pension equal to their last salary.” In other words: the Supreme Magistrates Council did not literally lie, but it was not honest either. For 98% is pretty much 100% and the difference is irrelevant. And the fact of receiving about the same amount in retirement as during your active working life means nothing less than a privilege – no other professional category enjoys such a thing. Disgusting as a tactic, shameful from the perspective of the lack of respect that the magistrates & their gang have towards the taxpayer who pay for their inflated pensions as well as the cascade of benefits that the magistrates have granted themselves over the years via the courts (they open the lawsuits, they judge the cases and they deliver the verdicts)!
Beyond all this, the magistrates council and the High Court and along with them, an entire profession are still mocking millions of people by the fact that:
- On the one hand, they publicly claim (see the press release ) that they have “the necessary openness to solving the…problems, so that the optimal solutions are identified to ensure a balanced approach”.
- But on the other hand, it practically blackmails the Government, the coalition and the head of state. And implicitly, it blackmails the public. How do they manage this? By keeping in the drawer their opinion that the government needs like air, according to the Constitutional Court decision, to pass the pension reform project. And the magistrates’ negotiators are resorting to such a thing when there are only two weeks left until November 28, when the deadline agreed by Romania with the European Commission to adopt the reform of magistrates’ pensions expires. Everything depends on this simple piece of paper on which the magistrates opinion is written (just an opinion, it doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative).During the discussions at Cotroceni Palace on Wednesday, the magistrates refused to guarantee that they would produce it in due time, given the fact that the government refuses to pay them an exorbitant amount from public money, for the so-called independence which is giving them sleepless nights. It is not surprising that a solution to this blockage generated by blackmail would be to rediscuss the deadline between Bucharest and Brussels. It is not surprising that there have already been signals that this lever will be accessed if necessary. But it is a particularly uninspired and damaging message, that magistrates are giving to society and to the country’s strategic partners, resorting to the scorched earth tactic precisely against the interests of their own citizens and against the interests of their own state.
“Shame” is a mild word for the gangster-like style in which a highly qualified professional body negotiates its interests, at the same time a professional body in which the slightest moral and ethical breach can quickly lead to disaster.
“Guilty”, on the other hand, seems to be the appropriate verdict.
