AG Lazar: The picture is bleak; 750 prosecutors will retire, many prosecutor's offices to be leaderless

In a recent interview to agerpres, Attorney General Augustin Lazar says that the picture provided by the entry into force of the amendments to justice legislation is "bleak" and the Public Prosecution Service will face staff shortages because approximately 750 prosecutors will be able to retire, which will lead to several prosecutor's offices being left leaderless.

When asked whether or not the Public Prosecution Service has analysed the impact of the coming into force of amendments to the justice legislation, Lazar says the picture is "bleak" and one of the consequences will be a massive departure of prosecutors from the system, which will bring the staff shortage to 40 percent. 

"We have conducted an analysis and, from its results, the picture is, unfortunately, bleaker. We cannot anticipate at the moment what will result from the possible enforcement of these laws. However, we can see that the aspects of enforcing these laws, laid out just like a puzzle, depict a picture of justice that will be blocked, namely a bleak picture of serving justice. I would like to show you some aspects. For instance, the Public Prosecution is currently running on a 13-percent staff deficit because the National Institute of Magistracy is not able to send us graduates at the rate at which some colleagues retire or judges leave. Many things are happening because we live in a very dynamic world. Well, we now have a 13-percent job vacancy rate in the Public Prosecution Service. If we offer the opportunity for magistrates to retire after 20 years of service, as the law so generously permits, it will mean that in the period immediately ahead some 750 prosecutors with the Public Prosecution Service will be able to retire. Also, a very large number of judges. 700 prosecutors out of 2,500 is a huge number. The staff shortage at the Public Prosecution Service will widen to almost 30-35 percent, if not to 40 percent," says Lazar

He claims that the majority of those who are entitled to retire are heads of prosecutor's offices, therefore, many such offices will be left leaderless.

"We look at the fact that, in the next four years, we won't have any graduates, because the graduation time at the National Institute of Magistracy will be four years, which seriously troubles us, because the caseload has increased. Currently we have almost 1,700,000 cases to solve; that will be in the activity report that we will unveil on Wednesday and we wonder who will solve all these cases, because they cannot be prescribed. As we have seen, the public opinion is very sensitive and we all are sensitive to the fact that justice should be done in a faster manner, and serious cases should not be prescribed. But, currently, it looks like we will have a very big crisis. But that's not all. Wait and see. Who are the 750 prosecutors who may retire? Most of them are heads of various units of the Public Prosecution Service because after 20 years of service, people have acquired professional training, expertise in the area and become leaders of others. Well, many units of the Public Prosecution Service will be, as they say, left leaderless because of the mere entry into force of the law. Which is very serious," Lazar explains.

He estimates that approximately 25 prosecutor's offices will have no prosecutor following the enforcement of the new laws.

"Nationwide, there are 15 offices that in 2017 operated with just one prosecutor. (...) There are almost 10 offices that operated with prosecutors that were reassigned from higher offices. Basically, they don't have any appointed prosecutors, which means that approximately 25 offices will be left with no prosecutor, because, according to the law, [the prosecutor] must operate when he/she has jurisdiction. (...) This is a number of problems that we, at this moment, have intuited, but there will be many that we have not anticipated. However, when these laws come into force, they [ problems] will emerge and challenge us. What conclusion can we draw from this? That, the spirit that generated this so-called reform is not a European spirit, for justice to work, as the spirit of the European rule of law is conceived," says Lazar.

He mentions that the amendments to the justice laws were made without any impact studies.

"And we should think twice before we adopt such legal provisions; we should think about the fact that we need advanced studies of impact. I have always said that. Never has a law been drawn up without impact studies. In the civilised world, in the European states with tradition, the founders of the EU, when two or three expressions are changed in a law, impact studies are being carried out almost one year prior to see what happens. Well, we cannot do otherwise. We are a state of the European Union," Lazar says.