Ruling Party Leader Contests New Judge Panel In His Appeal

According to Dragnea’s attorneys, the Supreme’s Court reselection of its five-judge panels following a Constitutional Court decision earlier this month was illegal, as the Court did not publish the decision’s reasoning. The PSD leader thus states that it is unclear whether constitutional judges wanted the entire panels re-drawn or if their ruling applied only for the panel's non-randomly drawn chairmen, who according to previous legal regulations were selected from magistrates with top Supreme Court offices.

The Supreme Court re-selected its five-judge panels through a random draw on November 9, following the Constitutional Court decision – with one of the panels to handle the appeal in case where Dragnea was sentenced to prison for his involvement in fictitious hiring of PSD members at a state agency.

This was in accordance with a judicial amendment enacted earlier this year, which changes the manner in which the panels are selected by removing the guaranteed panel chairman spot for a magistrate from the Supreme Court’s higher offices.

Supreme Court Chairman Cristina Tarcea initially held that the bill, which had no transitory norms, would be applied starting with the next selection of five-judge panels, in 2019. Following a constitutional conflict notification made by the Government on the matter, the Supreme Court was forced to re-select its panels.

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