Survey: Almost 40% of Romanians would attend a referendum on justice

A possible referendum called by the Romanian president on the subject of justice would pass the 30% threshold needed for validation, according to a national survey carried out by IMAS for local Europa FM. Almost 37% of respondents said they would attend such a referendum for sure, 15.6% would probably participate and 34.7% would not attend such a referendum. President Klaus Iohannis said earlier this week that the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) is trying to “amputate” the president’s powers and that an ample debate on the state’s architecture is needed, one that may even end with a referendum. When asked who should appoint the chief prosecutors of the main prosecuting offices in Romania (the anticorruption directorate DNA, the General Prosecutor’s Office and the anti-organized crime office DIICOT), most respondents to the IMAS survey (35.3%) said the president should be in charge of that. Meanwhile, 21.9% believe that the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) should appoint the chief prosecutors, and 17.2% think that the minister of justice should be responsible for that. Almost 15% of respondents said they are very happy with the Romanian president’s actions for defending the judiciary’s independence, 28% said they are ok with the president’s activity in this sense, and 13.3% said they are very unhappy. However, when it comes to how happy they are with the DNA chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi’s activity, almost 22% said they are very happy, 24.8% are happy, 13.8% are unhappy and 16.7% are very unhappy. Meanwhile, over 80% of Romanians believe the political factor has increasingly more influence in the judiciary system. The survey was carried out between June 9-13 based on data from 800 telephone interviews. Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com (photo source: Adobe Stock)