JusMin Toader: Procedure for assessment of high-rank prosecutors as per law, not CSM regulation

Justice Minister Tudorel Toader said on Saturday that the procedure for the assessment of high-rank prosecutors is carried out as per law and not the regulation of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM), insofar as the latter includes provisions that are contrary to the law.

"An elementary rule! The procedure for assessing high-rank prosecutors is carried out as per law and not according to the CSM regulation, insofar as it comprises provisions contrary to the law!", the Justice Minister wrote on Facebook.

Prosecutor General Augustin Lazar said in an interview for AGERPRES that JusMin Tudorel Toader did not comply with the CSM regulation as regards the procedure to remove from office Chief Prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate Laura Codruta Kovesi, inquiring whether the Executive may at the same time take up the role of denouncer and then of assessor.

"It is well known that Article 24 index 1 of the CSM statutes regulates step by step the procedure for the verification of the management exercised by a chief prosecutor all the way from notification to the verification by the Judicial Inspection. Then subjecting him or her to discussion in the relevant section, as to whether the respective is a prosecutor or a judge, then the person concerned is requested to present his or her defence. The defence is taken note of and may be verified. After that, the section orders the removal from office or not. The subject may appeal the decision of the section in the plenum and after that he or she may turn to the Administrative Section of the High Court of Cassation and Justice. So this is a very elaborate procedure and I asked the Prosecutors' Section whether there is this possibility, if it is allowed for the government to intervene in this procedure and override it and perform its own assessment. That is for the Executive to act at the same time as denouncer and then as assessor, as the judge of the situation, and further request the removal of a magistrate in a managing position. Our answer is that it cannot, because it would cross the red line of the separation of powers in the state," Lazar said.