Hungarian Minority Party Candidate Appointed Constitutional Judge in Romania

Csaba Asztalos

Csaba Asztalos, President of the Romanian National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD) and candidate of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ), was appointed constitutional judge by the Bucharest Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday.

In a secret ballot, Csaba Asztalos’ appointment was supported by 195 representatives, 73 opposed it, while Verginia Vedinas, proposed by the opposition SOS Romania party, received 13 votes in favor and 255 against. Lacramioara Axinte, also from the opposition party Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), received 60 votes in favor and 208 against.

Csaba Asztalos’ nomination as constitutional judge, supported by the governing coalition, had previously been approved by the Chamber of Deputies’ Legal Committee, at whose meeting Dan Tanasa, spokesperson for AUR, considered by the government to be an extremist party, protested loudly against the election of the RMDSZ candidate.

The representative, who has filed more than a hundred lawsuits against the use of Szekler flags and other Hungarian symbols, shouted at the committee meeting that his colleagues had “completely lost their minds” and that they wanted to make a “dual citizen who swore allegiance to Hungary” a constitutional judge, who “praised Szeklerland on Facebook.”

Csaba Asztalos replied that he only has Romanian citizenship, had sworn allegiance only to Romania during his military service, and that his Facebook post containing the words “Hajrá Székelyföld” (Go Szeklerland) was not intended as “ethnic separatism” as claimed by the AUR representative, but was a reference to a Szeklerland beer brand that he had tasted at a fair in Bucharest.

Fact

Csaba Asztalos, who is originally from Nagybánya, graduated with a law degree from the University of Oradea in 1997 and after numerous domestic and international further training courses, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the international comparison of citizenship regulations at the University of Bucharest in 2010. Between 1999 and 2002, he was the domestic policy and human rights advisor to the president of the RMDSZ, and since 2002 he has been a member and, since 2005, president of the Romanian Anti-Discrimination Authority.

According to the Romanian media, it was part of a coalition agreement between the governing parties that the PSD and the RMDSZ would be able to nominate a constitutional judge this year.

After the Constitutional Court, on its own initiative, declared the results of the first round of the presidential election invalid last December and ordered a repeat election, many figures in Romanian public life called for the political appointment mechanism for constitutional judges to be replaced with a professional one.

Fact

Members of the Romanian Constitutional Court are appointed for nine years. The nine-member body is appointed every three years by the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and the Office of the President. This year, the terms of three judges are ending, including that of Attila Varga, who was also elected to the court in 2016 on the recommendation of the RMDSZ. On Tuesday, the Senate appointed Mihai Busuioc, nominated by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), as a constitutional judge. In Romania, it has become customary over the past 35 years for the Romanian Constitutional Court to have a Hungarian member. The Romanian Constitutional Court exercises constitutional control over legislation passed by parliament, the government and local authorities. The politically appointed body has in many cases become the final arbiter in domestic political disputes, as its decisions are not subject to appeal.

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