The Foundation For The Defense Of Citizens Against State Abuses (FACIAS) calls on the People's Advocate Renate Weber to appeal to the Constitutional Court against the text of the law according to which the decision of the SCM section on the suspension of a magistrate from office cannot be challenged by any person, natural or legal.
Recently, the Disciplinary Section for Prosecutors of the Superior Council of Magistracy rejected the Judicial Inspection's request for the suspension of prosecutor Maria Pițurcă, the abusive prosecutor in the Baia de Aramă adoption case. According to the law, this decision cannot be challenged by any individual or legal entity.
The provisions of Article 52 of Law 317/2004 do not allow the decision of the appropriate section of the SCM to be challenged if the suspension from office of the magistrate under disciplinary investigation is rejected. This is an abuse!
In order to prevent such situations from recurring, FACIAS has asked the Ombudsman, Renate Weber, in her capacity as guarantor of citizens' rights, to refer the unconstitutionality of this law to the Constitutional Court.
According to Article 16 of the Romanian Constitution: "Citizens are equal before the law and public authorities, without privileges and without discrimination". Moreover, according to Art. 21 para. (1) and (2) "Any person may apply to the courts to defend his rights, freedoms and legitimate interests" and "No law may restrict the exercise of this right". In addition, according to Article 129 of the Basic Law it guarantees the use of legal remedies in order to ensure proper judicial review.
According to Article 52 of Law 317/2004, during the disciplinary procedure, the appropriate section of the Superior Council of Magistracy, ex officio or at the proposal of the judicial inspector, may order the suspension of the magistrate from office until the final resolution of the disciplinary action. The procedure should apply where the continued exercise of the office could affect the impartial conduct of disciplinary proceedings or where the disciplinary procedure is likely to seriously harm the prestige of justice.
In other words, exactly what happened in the case of the little girl from Baia de Aramă when, on 26 June 2019, prosecutor Maria Pițurcă of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Appeal of Craiova carried out a house search in which she forcibly took the 8-year-old girl from the home of foster carers to hand her over to her adoptive family, using a search warrant.
The prosecutor mistreated the minor both physically and mentally, which endangered both her health and her mental and emotional development.
FACIAS referred the matter to the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Judicial Inspectorate. Subsequently, the Judicial Inspectorate requested the suspension of prosecutor Maria Pițurcă from the judiciary.