On Monday, October 31, 2011, the Senate for the second time rejected the draft law on the unification of judicial practice, despite the fact that non-unitary application by the courts of the laws passed by Parliament is an old problem and for which Romania has repeatedly assumed rows the settlement obligation. Transparency International Romania draws attention to the fact that there are good intentions to avoid duplication of legislation - by invoking the fact that similar regulations are already found in the new codes, the Senate has done a great deal of disrespect for both justice and the judiciary.

The Global Corruption Barometer showed in 2010 that justice is perceived as the third most vulnerable to corrupt institution in Romania, the first being the parliament and political parties that have decided the fate of this bill. And the main cause of this perception among the population is generated by obtaining contradictory solutions in as close as possible cases. Such situations are encountered even in solutions of the same court. We appreciate that in such situations, the question of whether or not it is beyond such solutions is more than mere divergence of interpretation is legitimate.

The non-unitary practice of the courts costs us all. It costs court-lovers - because they have discriminatory treatment and the protection of their rights remains only a desideratum. The magistrates because they are called upon to settle a large number of complaints. The business environment, because waiting for a fair decision means a loss of profit, or because foreign investors are afraid to operate in the country due to legal uncertainty. And last but not least, it costs each of us, as taxpayers, because we bear these costs when Romania is convicted by international courts (ECHR).

We emphasize that the issue of non-unitary practice is not an exclusive one of justice. It judges on the basis of the laws adopted by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, but mainly on the basis of the simple or emergency ordinances issued by the Government in an unacceptably large amount in the last period, normative acts whose drafting is often deficient and leave room for multiple interpretations.

Under these circumstances, Transparency International Romania considers it imperative to resolve any differences between political decision-makers, blocking the adoption of measures to unify judicial practice and identifying, together with the judiciary, the best technical solutions for creating the necessary framework of a performing justice.

We emphasize that for now, the non-unitary practice remains one of the test stones of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism and the recognition of judgments pronounced in Romania in the countries of the European Union is questioned.

Victor Alistar,

Executive Director