Justice Minister Radu Marinescu on Friday said that the justice protest cannot override the responsibility to resolve urgent cases.

This clarification comes after a lawyer reportedly told Digi 24 that judges at the Bucharest Court of Appeal had suspended a case, amid the magistrates’ protest, in which his client, a cancer patient, was requesting medical treatment through an presidential ordinance.

‘The protest in the judiciary cannot override the responsibility to resolve urgent cases and must avoid excesses that harm the Romanian people. The oath to defend people’s rights and freedoms demands promptness in delivering justice, especially when the litigant is fighting a race against time for their life,’ wrote Radu Marinescu in a Facebook post.

He added that judicial independence itself entails the obligation to deliver justice to the citizen.

‘Without commenting on what an independent judge is sovereign to decide in a specific case, I believe that this very independence carries the duty to uphold justice for the citizen – especially when there is a perception that another public authority may have failed to do so. I therefore urge the judiciary to act with balance, wisdom and responsibility, and to avoid any situation that might deepen public distrust or dissatisfaction,’ the minister stressed.

AGERPRES