A panel of three judges from the Supreme Court has referred the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which will answer two questions regarding the statute of limitations for cases involving fraud against European Union funds.
Judges Rodica Aida Popa, Simona Cîrnaru, and Oana Burnel want to know whether „in the interpretation and application of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, (…) in the absence of a domestic legal provision establishing a minimum amount to consider fraud as serious, which harms the financial interests of the European Union, the provisions of Union law must be interpreted in the sense that fraud is considered serious exclusively when it involves an amount greater than 50,000 euros?”
Additionally, in the event of a negative answer, the panel of the Supreme Court wants to know whether „in a criminal procedure concerning VAT-related crimes, the national court must disregard the national protection standard regarding the principle of lex mitior (…), a standard according to which procedural acts intervening before the invalidation of the national legislative provision regulating the interruption of the statute of limitations for criminal liability do not have a suspensive effect on the statute of limitations.”
The Court also decided to suspend the process until the CJEU rules, a decision that can be challenged by the lawyers of the defendants.
Tax evaders freed by the CCR and ICCJ The ruling was issued in a tax evasion case where a company from Oradea and five businessmen were sent to trial. In 2022, the Satu Mare Tribunal sentenced them to suspended prison terms, but in 2024, the Oradea Court of Appeal applied the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court rulings regarding the more favorable criminal law and decided that the crimes were time-barred.
Subsequently, the case was taken to the Supreme Court in an extraordinary appeal for cassation.
Recently, the vice-president of the CSM, prosecutor Claudiu Sandu, stated that Romania has become „closer to a paradise for criminals than to a state of law.” He received a response from Judge Alina Corbu, the head of the Supreme Court, who blamed the thousands of rulings to dismiss time-barred criminal cases on the judicial practice. „If judicial practice changes, it is natural for that to happen because the world around us is evolving. If judges have already outlined a jurisprudence, in one way or another, it must be followed, whether it pleases or displeases, whether it leads to the closure of cases,” said Corbu.
Thus, at least in this case, three judges from the Supreme Court disagree with the „jurisprudence” of their colleagues who are swiftly closing cases by invoking „compliance” with the law.
