Judge Cristi Dănileţ announced on Monday that he had definitively won the trial in which he challenged the decision of the Superior Council of the Judiciary to exclude him from the judiciary for the videos posted on Tik Tok. Even if the court’s decision is final, he cannot go back to work for the moment because he has two pending cases for two other exclusion and suspension sanctions decided by the CSM.
Judge Cristi DanilețPhoto: Photo Inquam – Virgil Simionescu
The decision was made on Monday by the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
In the trial won on Monday, it is the decision taken by the CSM on December 13, 2021 regarding his exclusion from the judiciary, for two videos posted on TikTok. The supreme court ruled in favor of the magistrate and ordered a reprimand in his case.
- “Of the 6 sanctions applicable to a magistrate, the harshest was imposed on me. Although the solution was not definitive, I was immediately suspended from my office: that is, my criminal record was taken away from me (therefore the trial was started all over again from other judges), I was prevented from going to work and left without any kind of income (even though I have a mother and a dependent daughter). Good luck with my good colleagues who, monthly, messed up so that I could get away with it.
- The law says that the CSM must justify the solution within 20 days.
- I received the motivation after… 6 months. I filed an appeal, the summer holidays came, then in the fall it was the first term in court when I hired my lawyer, Ms. Nicoleta Popescu, and today, December 12th. 2022, the appeal was finally judged. The panel of 5 judges of the ICCJ decided that the sanction given by the SCM was wrong and changed it to a warning, i.e. the least severe of the six possible sanctions.
- Interestingly, on December 16, 2022, a new law on the status of magistrates came into force: acts like the one I committed and for which I was sanctioned, however, will no longer be violations.
- So I was suspended for nothing. And yet, I can’t go back to work, because in the meantime the CSM has imposed two more sanctions on me, both with exclusion and also with suspension when deciding on the appeal. The appeals will follow there too, after the CSM communicated to me the reasons for the solutions with great delay”, wrote Danileț on Facebook.
How Cristi Danileț was excluded from the judiciary
On December 13, 2021, the Section for Disciplinary Judges of the CSM decided to exclude Judge Cristi Danileţ of the Court of Cluj from the judiciary, for “manifestations he allegedly had on different social networks”.
The decision to exclude Danileț from the judiciary – considered one of the reformist magistrates, who protested in the square against the modification of the laws on justice by the PSD – was taken with the vote of judges Bogdan Mateescu, Lia Savonea, Simona Marcu, Mariana Ghena and Nicoleta Ținț, official sources told HotNews.ro at the time. Mihai Bălan and Andrea Chiș voted against, while Gabriela Baltag and Evelina Oprina proposed to sanction Danileț by reducing his salary.
The magistrate said he was accused of two videos posted on TikTok: in one he cuts the hedge in the house, and in the other he cleans a swimming pool.
On 14 December, the SCM adopted a new measure relating to the suspension of the judge until the completion of the file relating to the exclusion of Danileţ. The judge requested that the execution of that decision be suspended from December 14 until the court’s ruling.
On 7 March, the Alba Iulia Court of Appeal rejected Danileţ’s request to suspend the decision of the Superior Council of the Judiciary by which he was suspended up to the merits of the decision to exclude him from the judiciary. Until the file was transferred to Alba Iulia, there were two sentences of the Supreme Court and two of the Court of Appeal of Cluj, with which the magistrates maintained that they did not have the competence to judge Danileţ’s request relating to the suspension of the CSM’s decision.
In July, Danileț was barred from the judiciary for the second time by the Section for Judges of the CSM in Disciplinary Matters, for carrying out his duties with gross negligence.
Following the decisions of the CSM, Danileț lost the right to judge.
