The European Court of Human Rights has found a Romanian judge’s freedom of expression rights were breached when he was sanctioned by the country’s judicial watchdog over two Facebook messages.

Vasilică-Cristi Danileţ brought a case at the ECtHR against Romania claiming a violation of Article 10 rights  on account of a finding made against him by the National Judicial and Legal Service Commission. 

Danileţ, now retired, was a judge at Cluj county court known ‘for his active participation in debates on democracy, the rule of law and the justice system’. In January 2019, he posted two messages on his Facebook page, where he had some 50,000 followers. His first post, the ECtHR judgment said, was ‘in the context of the extension of the army chief of staff’s term of office by a presidential decree of 28 December 2018’. The second message included a comment and hyperlink to a news story which featured an interview with a prosecutor. Both expressed personal opinions.

Danilet unsuccessfully appealed his disciplinary sanction – a two-month 5% pay cut – before going to Strasbourg. 

The ECtHR's  89-page judgment said that the ‘disciplinary measure pursued a legitimate aim…of maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary’.

‘Matters relating to the functioning of the justice system and judicial reforms are undeniably of public interest,' it continued. 'They are not, however, the only issues in relation to which judges might legitimately exercise their freedom of expression under Article 10 of the convention.

‘A reasonable balance…needs to be struck between the degree to which judges may be involved in society and the need for them to be and to be seen as independent and impartial in the discharge of their duties. The question that should therefore always be asked is whether, in the particular social context and in the eyes of a reasonable, informed observer, the judge has engaged in an activity which could objectively compromise his or her independence or impartiality.’

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The judgment said the national authorities’ reasons for the judge’s sanction included ‘nothing to indicate how his remarks could have undermined the proper functioning of the domestic justice system or could have impaired the dignity and honour of judicial office or the public confidence that office should inspire’.

It added that Danileţ’s Facebook remarks ‘were not such as to upset the requisite reasonable balance between, on the one hand, the degree to which the applicant, as a judge, could be involved in society in order to defend the constitutional order and state institutions and, on the other, the need for him to be and to be seen as independent and impartial in the discharge of his duties’.

The court found, by 10 votes to seven, that there had been a violation of Article 10 and ordered, by 10 votes to seven, that Romania pay Danileţ €9,705.44 (£8,522.35).

The judgment was handed down this month a time of ongoing protests in Romania. Hundreds of Romanian judges and prosecutors have signed a letter of complaint over ‘profound and systemic dysfunction’ in the country’s justice system.