Acting JusMin Birchall to convene CVM committee

Acting Justice Minister Ana Birchall said on Tuesday that she will convene the committee dealing with the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) in an urgent meeting to devise an action plan for the implementation of the recommendations contained in the European Commission report on Romania's progress under CVM, showing that one explicit aim in the report is the disbandment of the Special Section to investigate criminal offences committed by magistrates. "As also proved in the half-year semester in which it held the presidency of the Council of the EU, Romania is ready to take an active role in strengthening the European construction, where justice occupies a primary place, having as central pillars judicial cooperation based on mutual trust and mutual recognition of decisions. In this regard, I have decided that, pursuant to Government Decision 216/2012, the CVM Committee, in which all institutions with a say in the smooth operation of justice in Romania are represented, should be convened as a matter of urgency. I am urging all to respond in the positive to the invitation I will send. It will be the most extensive and representative meeting of the CVM Committee so far. It is time to devise an action plan with tight deadlines for the implementation of the recommendations that we will then discuss with the European Commission and follow. Although an intense electoral year will come, I believe that Romania's interest is above the electoral one and that, together, at the same table, we can and must establish what we have to do," Birchall told a news conference on Tuesday. "Let's not forget where we started, namely the November 2018 report, which was of unprecedented harshness. However, we did everything we could to get a better report. I must emphasise that the report creates the premises for the lifting of this mechanism only if all the actors involved in Romania will join the efforts of the Ministry of Justice and put the European destiny of Romania above all interests. It must be clear to everyone that no miracles could be worked overnight, given that, when it took over the presidency of the European Council, Romania was on the verge of having Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union activated against it, as it is otherwise stated in the text of the report, a report that mentions the European Commission's letter of May 2019.(...)," Birchall explained. She added that the CVM Report criticises the activity of the Special Section for Investigating Magistrates (SIIJ) and recommends that it be disbanded. According to Birchall, the activity of the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM) led to a negative evaluation by the European Commission. "In connection with the SIIJ, as you find this time, the European Commission criticises the establishment and operation of the Justice crime investigation section, reiterating the observations and recommendations made by both the Venice Commission and GRECO, as well as those made by the European Commission under its report of November 2018. The report explicitly recommends the disbandment of this section. As justice minister and a CSM member, I can only express my deep regret and concern that the last year's activity of CSM has triggered a negative evaluation by the Commission, based on the statements or actions of some CSM members and, more seriously, of the CSM chair, expressly mentioned in the report. That is all the more worrying as it reflects a clear backtracking from previous evaluations of the CSM by the European Commission on how CSM fulfilled its constitutional purpose as a guarantor of judiciary independence," said Birchall. She has also mentioned that since taking over office her goal has been to restart a dialogue with the European Commission and to rebuild trust between the EU and Romania. AGERPRES (RO- author: Eusebi Manolache, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)