Key Romanian judicial institution elects new president

Judge Simona Camelia Marcu has been elected president of the country’s Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM), a key institution of the local legal system, tasked with overseeing the independence of the judiciary. She was elected with 11 votes in favor, while eight votes went against her. Marcu will have a one-year mandate. The 51 year old judge is a member of the CSM on behalf of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Romania's highest court. She is a 1988 graduate of the Law Faculty of the University of Bucharest, and previously worked as a judge with the capital’s District I Court, Bucharest Court, and Bucharest Court of Appeals. At the High Court of Cassation and Justice she worked as a judge in the Administrative and Fiscal Litigation Department. In February 2017, she asked in a CSM meeting that the Judicial Inspection should look into how Romania’s General Prosecutor Augustin Lazăr managed the “public communication following the issuing of the [government ordinance] OUG 13.” Her request was rejected. In 2011, newspaper Romania Libera listed her as one of the richest judges at the High Court of Cassation and Justice. In the project accompanying her candidacy for the CSM presidency, she argued for a “balanced judicial system,” where the institution “should fully undertake the constitutional role of warrant of the independence of justice.” At the same time, prosecutor Codruţ Olaru was elected vice president of the CSM, with 10 votes in favor, and nine against. From May 2013 to 2016, he was a deputy of Romania’s general prosecutor. Before this, he worked as the chief prosecutor of the Anti-Organized Crime and Terrorism Directorate - DIICOT. In 2004, he was granted the rank of brigadier general, one star. In May 2017, he was recalled into active duty. Olaru also said he would “constantly strive for defending the independence of the judicial system.” President Klaus Iohannis attended the January 5 meeting in which the new CSM president and vice president were elected. The president argued that talks can be held on the architecture of the state but not on the independence of justice. He also said that the principle of integrity should be introduced in the Constitution, because people that have legal problems should not be running the state. “I have said it before and I’m saying it again that such people should not be running the state. They will always be tempted to question the independence of justice, thus seriously damaging the state,” Iohannis said, quoted by News.ro. Iohannis previously made the same argument