Government Approves Drafts on the High Court of Justice Reform and the Judicial Assessment Process

On Tuesday, the government approved two bills on the reform of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) and the assessment process for judges and SCJ candidates. Minister of Justice Veronica Mihailov-Moraru said that the reorganization involves the reduction of the SCJ powers and its transformation into a court of cassation, which will reduce the number of cases in the proceedings, infotag.md reports. According to the minister, the number of judges of the Supreme Court of Justice will be reduced from 33 to 20, of whom 11 will be from the judiciary and nine from other professions: attorneys, prosecutors and professors.  The second draft concerns the assessment of judges and candidates for the Supreme Court of Justice. The evaluation will be carried out by a new assessment commission (set up by the parliament’s decision), which will start its work after two laws are passed. The mechanism of creating and functioning of the commission will be similar to that of the prevetting (incorruptibility and ethics). The plan is to complete the review in six months. But the final decision on promotion rests with the Superior Council of Magistracy. Prime Minister Dorin Recean stressed that the justice reform will continue no matter what. “The government will expect honest people in the system, we want to encourage them to contribute to the reform, to increase confidence in justice, because it is time for the system to show results. We all want independent justice,” he said.