Macovei: Judicial system, first to be cleaned

Monica Macovei, Romanian Member of the European Parliament:

The main priority in the war against corruption is to fight corruption within the judicial system. I say this based on my experience, since I have been dealing with several enlargement processes. The reason is that even if there are good prosecutors for building the cases, when these cases go to corrupted judges or that are personally involved, these cases would be doomed. This is much related with the people’s trust, because in many judicial cases, either for property disputes or anything else, people will have to confront the problem through the judicial system. And if the system is corrupted, nothing will function as it should. Therefore, this must be a priority.

Macovei argues that impunity will disappear only after having a clean judicial system.

Macovei: First of all, punishments are needed. As I said, there are many cases when politicians under investigation go to court and nothing happens to them for three or five years. This is the case even for Croatia, Romania, Albania and many other countries. Punishment is needed; hence I say that justice is the one to be cleaned first. The judicial cases involving politicians are a test for justice, because the trials end quicker with common citizens. But the politicians are a test for the judges, because here is when the phone starts ringing or not, not for you or for any of your friends. Impunity is the opposite of the rule of law, which says that everyone is equal in front of the law. For this reason, when there is impunity for any kind of motive, there is no rule of law. As result, people lose their trust in the judicial system, since the law, the system of punishment would apply with you, but not with someone else. It is against the rule of law. And this is exactly the case. The politicians should be brought to justice. If the court is inefficient and there are corrupted judges, we will see no politicians getting punished. This is an additional argument that reinforces what I am saying, what we in Romania have already experienced. We have also had corruption cases at the Supreme Court, among the judges who had political affiliations. I want to reiterate that for guaranteeing that the cases involving politicians will also be righteously trialed, really based on the evidence, then the judicial system is the first that needs to be cleaned.

The cleaning of the Judicial System is a competence of the High Council of Justice. Macovei explains why this structure in post-communist countries has resulted as failed.

Macivei: This is achieved through disciplinary institutions that you surely must have, same as any other post-communist country, in which it is called a High Council of Justice. They should be forced by law to clean the judicial system.  But these Councils are a failure for all post-communist countries. They are tasked to clean the judges. For example, if some prosecutors or judges do not declare their assets in time, they should be out. If they keep a case for more than one year, without giving the sentences as they should, they should be out. We’re not talking about a penal or material responsibility here, but you can discharge and give them another job, completely different. But we did this wrong. First we should have tested who these people were, then giving them all these guarantees and independence, unlimited mandates and so on. Do not forget that the unlimited appointments and independence go together with accountability, and don’t forget that the judicial independence does not give to the judges the right to do what they want with it. It is a constitutional right of all people to have an independent judicial system; hence they have to be accountable.

Monica Macovei started her career in Romania as a prosecutor. Then she was engaged in the civil society, as expert of the Helsinki Committee and the Council of Europe. Although not a member of any political party, she was appointed Minister of Justice. Before being elected as a European Parliament Member, Macovei worked with the Macedonian Government as an anti-corruption advisor.

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