Liviu Dragnea sues Supreme Court, claims judges were illegally assigned to his appeal case

PSD leader Liviu Dragnea is challenging, via the Bucharest Courts of Appeal, the way the High Court of Cassation and Justice (Supreme Court) assigned the five judges in his appeal of the DGASPC Teleorman case, which was supposed to begin hearings today, but was postponed until November 5 because Dragnea wanted to change lawyers.

Dragnea was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison in the initial case ruling, and both him and the DNA prosecutors have called for an appeal. He is being accused of having committed abuse in office while president of the Teleorman County Council, by hiring two women at the Child Protection Services Agency (DGASPC) who were actually working for the local PSD organisation on a daily basis while collecting salaries from the DGASPC.

The PSD leader claims that the five judges assigned to his appeal were named illegally because the updated law 304/2004, one of the controversial justice laws changed by the PSD-ALDE coalition, states that all judges must be assigned randomly, while the old procedure stated that the heads of the two five-judge panels must be the vice president of the Supreme Court and the chief of the Criminal section, while the other eight judges (four for each panel) are chosen randomly.

However, according to Adevarul, although the new form of the law has been passed, the PSD failed to introduce instructions on what happens to the panels formed at the beginning of 2018, using the old regulation. In lack of such a directive, the well-established legal principle of continuity is normally applied, meaning that the new panels will only be created starting next year. According to Adevarul’s sources, Dragnea wants one of the judges, Iulian Dragomir, off his panel, as he believes he would decide against him.

In this context, Dragnea’s best option would be to pressure the government to change law 304/2004 once again through an Emergency ordinance. However, Justice minister Tudorel Toader has reportedly refused to initiate such a project. Obtaining the change through Parliament is another option, but it would take too long as his appeal has already begun. The third option, of notifying the Constitutional Court of a legal conflict between the Supreme Court and the Parliament, has already been undertaken by PM Viorica Dancila.