Judges and former judges react after Nicușor Dan said that he is the “head of the Romanian state apparatus”

Former judge Cristi Danileț told Nicușor Dan that the President of Romania is not superior to the other public authorities and that judges do not have a superior in the exercise of their office, after the leader at Cotroceni said that, “symbolically,” he is “the head of the Romanian state apparatus, namely police officers, medical assistants, teachers, civil servants, judges.” Judge Raluca Moroșanu, known for confirming at a press conference the testimonies in Recorder’s documentary “Captured Justice,” also reacted to this statement.

Nicușor Dan stated Thursday, at a press conference in Dublin where he explained why he had banned journalist Ovidiu Vanghele from entering Cotroceni, that he is, “symbolically, the head of the Romanian state apparatus, namely police officers, medical assistants, teachers, civil servants, judges,” and for this reason he cannot accept “that any of these people who work for the Romanian state can be treated like garbage by a citizen of this state, because it is a form of disrespect toward the state itself and toward the authority of the Romanian state.”

“Of those listed among the state apparatus, judges are the only ones who do not have a superior,” Danileț reacted. He specified that court presidents coordinate the work of court clerks and the administration of buildings, but they are not superiors of judges.

The former magistrate explained that, although the president is traditionally called the “head of state,” this wording, accepted by the Constitutional Court through Decision no. 683/2012, does not grant him control over the authorities belonging to the other branches of state power. According to Danileț, the only institution whose employees are directly under the president’s authority is the Presidential Administration.

Judge Raluca Moroșanu also reacted with the message, “He is not my boss.” Danileț also shared the reaction of Judge Laurențiu Beșu.