PM Victor Ponta
I wanted to attend the taking over of the mandate as Justice Minister by Mr. Cazanciuc. It is for the second time when I resign from the post as Justice Minister and I could not miss such a moment. Besides the joke, the Minister Cazanciuc has some important objectives we set together in our capacities as Prime Minister and Minister of Justice.
First of all, upgrading and as balanced as possible unfolding, in the limit and space prescribed by Constitution and laws, of the Justice Minister’s activity within and with CSM, the CSM plenum and the Prosecutors and Judges Departments for a better cooperation and for us to be able to achieve progress in the important processes of judiciary reform. This implies including for Mr. Minister the conclusion of procedures on Public Ministry management, central management of Prosecutor’ Offices.
Therefore, new nominations for the already vacant posts. I discussed with Minister and he agrees with a principle I announced in the past days, that of nominating for the leadership positions, both at DNA, and at DIICOT and within the Prosecutor’s Office near the High Court of Cassation and Justice, persons with experience within those institutions and persons to fit all professional and moral standards awaited by CSM and the system. Obviously, the monitoring and achieving as much objectives as possible from those established in the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, those relative to Justice Ministry, besides me, those relative to Government, and those relative to Parliament, together with the parliamentary majority. The Anticorruption Strategy, implementation of Anticorruption Strategy objectives, implementation of the two codes – Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code and training practically besides the daily tasks administration, administration task falling to the Justice Ministry preparation of all legislative changes to make possible a much efficient justice system for citizen, as public service. The fundamental things I have always believed in and in which Minister believes too – since we know each other for very many years, we belong to the same generation of jurists, a justice to resolve much quickly all causes and cases brought to his attention, to set quickly who wins a case and how quickly a person who broke the criminal law can be convicted, how quickly a trading society can have a final decision, therefore, rapidity and celerity in resolving cases.
Secondly, an adequate and smaller cost for citizen, so that the judiciary does not remain a service only wealthy people, with possibility to hire lawyers can appeal to, people who can travel at various court hearings and therefore have access to justice.
Thirdly, obviously, the responsibility for judicial act, respect of citizens for the judiciary resolutions but also the responsibility of those magistrates who break the law and commit mistakes and who obviously in their turn are liable for these mistakes. It will not be a easy task. He has my political support, and my support as Prime Minister and I wish him success over the next period.
Minister Robert Marius Cazanciuc: Thank you very much. I would firstly like to thank you for your trust. It honors and obliges me. I would, at the same time thank colleagues from the Foreign Ministry, who were four years with me and certainly will help me in the future, especially in terms of Coordination and Verification Mechanism. Prime Minister relieved pretty much my task, in his capacity as Interim Minister of Justice, in that he already knows quite well the problems of the Ministry, the system issues, so we certainly have a dialogue based on real data, so together we can propose solutions. Solutions obviously for shorter court litigations to try to make the system more reliable. I come from the system, I know many people of value and I trust that, having the resources, we will succeed. We have priorities related to codes and related to MCV. There are things to fulfill within the MCV, but I would like beyond honoring our obligations towards European partners to help developing honest relationships of trust with our European partners, I do not just want to meet formal things, we want to gain the trust of European partners through things showed as they are, openly, honestly, as I said, in order to develop a long-term relationship, at least from the perspective of the Ministry of Justice. We discuss about the Ministry of Justice that has certain legal powers. I will try to limit these powers to develop a solid relationship with CSM, with associations of magistrates, with the Parliament, because it takes a normative system, I think, predictable, well-formed, so that the norm serves the citizen and not be felt sometimes like a burden, because it was not sufficiently prepared or was not sufficiently put in the page, so as to be properly understood by system professionals and especially by citizens. I will speak more in detail in the next period, about the Ministry's priorities after I will have meetings with the Secretaries of State in the Ministry of Justice, after we establish with colleagues in Government what the Ministry of Justice can do to contribute to a coherent and well established legislative system.