Maybe you are interested in making a career as a judge, maybe you just want to get an idea about this profession or maybe you know a judge and you are curious to find out what his life looks like from the perspective of the profession he has chosen. Here is some information about Romanian judges to answer your curiosity.
Suppose you intend to pursue a career as a judge, you learn during college, you learn even after college, you give admission and you enter the National Institute of Magistracy. Once here, you expect to be called a “judge” or at least a “trainee judge”. Well, in the first year, this will not be your title. Instead, you will call yourself a “justice auditor.” After the first year at NIM, you will choose what kind of magistrate you want to be, prosecutor / judge, but this choice is conditioned by the number of positions and is made in the order of averages. And only after graduating from the institute, you will be appointed “trainee judge“. The internship lasts one year and at the end of it you will take a new exam, called the skills exam. Only after you will be declared admitted and you will be appointed to the position of “judge” by the President of Romania.
Let’s choose this scenario now: you have a legal career, either you are a lawyer, notary, legal advisor, or you have another position that requires a law degree, and for at least 5 long years you thought it was not exactly what suited you. Well, there is the possibility to change your current profession with that of judge, by jumping the stage of admission and academic career at the NIM, direct admission into the magistrature. However, you should know that you will not skip the whole stage: after being admitted to the magistracy, the candidates declared admitted will be obliged to follow a training course within NIM for a period of 6 months. Useful, isn’t it?
After long and diligent efforts, you managed to finish the two-year period of training within NIM, you graduated and now you are a judge. What you need to know before embarking on the path of the magistracy is that the legislation stipulates that you must fulfill at least 6 years the position for which you have prepared, otherwise, “if a graduate of the National Institute of Magistracy is released from office before the expiry of the 6-year period, on his own initiative or for reasons attributable to him, he is obliged to reimburse the scholarship of justice auditor and the tuition expenses incurred with his training, in proportion to the time remaining until the end of the 6-year term. ”. So make sure you make a choice that you can live with for at least 6 years!
As a judge you will be bound by a series of obligations, but you will also enjoy multiple rights to ensure your position in court and society.
The most important, which have been raised to the rank of principles, are the independence and immovability of judges.
As an independent judge in your judicial activity you are subject only to the law, you must not submit to any state body or to higher bodies. The way in which the law is enforced in each specific case must be the expression of the intimate conviction of the judge, which he must form without any outside influence or interference.
The immovability of judges is the rule that establishes that appointed judges may be moved by transfer, delegation, secondment or promotion, only with their consent and may be suspended or released from office under the conditions provided by law. This principle is a guarantee of the independence and impartiality of judges, which allows them to oppose when a transfer, a delegation, a secondment or even a promotion come as a form of exerting pressure.
Regarding the obligations of judges, you must first know that the profession of judge is incompatible with any other public or private position, except for teaching positions in higher education and training within the NIM and the National School of Clerks. At the same time, they cannot offer written or verbal consultations or carry out activities that are specific to the lawyer profession. However, they may plead in personal cases, of ascendants, descendants or spouses, or of persons under their guardianship.
If you would like to address more questions or if you need a legal consultation, you can contact us at office@rrpb.ro or by accessing our site www.rrpb.ro for more information.
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