The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Thursday, October 22, in favor of the Romanian state in a case concerning the staggered payment of salary arrears awarded by courts to several Romanian magistrates.
The case was brought to the ECHR by former and current judges, who filed several lawsuits against the Romanian state which were consolidated into a single case, claiming that they were owed EUR 300,000 in salary arrears awarded by courts.
The payment of these arrears was staggered by the Romanian state. According to the ECHR ruling, the state cannot invoke a lack of funds or other resources to justify failing to fulfill a debt established by a court judgment.
“Nevertheless, the Court considers that the present case concerns exceptional circumstances and economic and budgetary constraints that the authorities had to manage in a difficult economic climate. In this context of an acute and prolonged economic crisis, and despite insufficient financial resources, the domestic authorities implemented a series of successive adjustments that enabled the progressive enforcement of court judgments,” according to the statement issued by the ECHR and cited by Digi24.
The ECHR also ruled that when determining judges’ salary entitlements, “the courts appear to have exceeded their traditional role of interpreting and applying the law, a situation liable to create the appearance of an interinstitutional conflict of interest.”
Specifically, “when national judges were called upon to rule on components of remuneration from which they themselves could benefit, their participation in the adoption of such decisions was liable to give rise to a conflict of interest, as their personal financial interests could interfere with the impartial exercise of their judicial functions,” according to the European Court of Human Rights.
The ECHR also stressed that “the national judge is not tasked with substituting themselves for the national authorities in choosing budgetary and economic policies, spending priorities, and the allocation of public resources, which fall within the remit of the executive and legislative branches, which enjoy a wide margin of appreciation in this area.”
The ECHR ruling was issued by a panel of seven judges, unanimously, and is final. The claimants, all Romanian magistrates, were represented by the controversial president of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Lia Savonea.
This is the fourth time a European court has sanctioned policies promoted by Savonea. These include the Lin I and Lin II cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union, concerning the statute of limitations for criminal liability, and the ECHR judgment concerning the sanction imposed on judge Cristi Danileț for expressing an opinion, according to G4Media.