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| - Romania's liberal government on Wednesday pledged to amend unpopular justice reforms implemented by its predecessor, as a rule-of-law report from the European Commission criticised the east European country. "I call upon Romanian magistrates to join me in building and rebuilding (the justice system)", justice minister Catalin Predoiu said on Wednesday during a press conference. Top of the list of proposals under the draft law, set to be debated until March 31, is the disbanding of a special investigative unit targeting magistrates. Setting up the unit was one of the most controversial changes while the Social Democrats (PSD) were in power from 2016, before they were unseated in 2019 by a no-confidence vote. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in 2018 to protest against the justice reforms, and their unpopularity saw PSD battered at the European, presidential and local elections that took place in the following months. "Controversial measures with negative impact on judicial independence continue to apply, such as the Section for the Investigation of Offences in the Judiciary, tasked exclusively with the prosecution of crimes committed by judges and prosecutors", the European Commission wrote in its country-by-country report published on Wednesday. The unit has consistently had Romania's former chief anti-corruption prosecutor and the current European Public Prosecutor, Laura Codruta Kovesi, in its sights. It indicted her on charges of leading "an organised criminal group". Kovesi rejected the charges and called them an attempt to "silence" her. In May of this year, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Romania violated Kovesi's right to a fair trial when sacking her from her post in 2018. The draft laws published Wednesday by Romania's government include the right of a prosecutor to challenge his or her dismissal in court as a direct result of her experience. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis welcomed the European Commission's rule-of-law report. "We've been saying for a long time that we need something like this, not the CVM (Cooperation and Verification Mechanism) that discriminates against Romania and Bulgaria," Iohannis told reporters, referring to a special monitoring process applied only to the two neighbouring countries. Romania is to hold parliamentary elections on 6 December. ii/tgb
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