1 This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU, read in conjunction with Article 2 TEU.
2 The request has been made in proceedings between, on the one hand, RL, QN, MR, JT, VS and AX, who are former judges, and, on the other hand, the Curtea de Apel București (Court of Appeal, Bucharest, Romania) concerning the non-payment to those judges of severance pay upon retirement.
3 Article 66 of Legea nr. 24/2000 privind normele de Tehnică legislativă pentru elaborarea actelor normative (Law No 24/2000 on the technical legislative rules for the drafting of legislative acts) of 27 March 2000 (Monitorul Oficial al României, Part I, No 260 of 21 April 2010) provides: ‘1. In specific cases, the application of a legislative act may be suspended by another legal act of the same rank or higher. In such a situation, express provision shall be made for the date on which the suspension commences and its duration. … 3. The extension of the suspension or the amendment or repeal of the suspended legislative act or provision may be the subject of a legislative act or an express provision taking effect on the date of expiry of the suspension. …’
4 Article 74 of Legea nr. 303/2004 privind statutul judecătorilor și procurorilor (Law No 303/2004 on the statute for judges and prosecutors) of 28 June 2004 (republished in the Monitorul Oficial al României, Part I, No 826 of 13 September 2005; ‘the Law on the former statute for judges and prosecutors’) provided: ‘1. For their work, judges and prosecutors shall be entitled to remuneration determined on the basis of the level of the court or public prosecutor’s office, the duties performed, seniority in the judiciary and other criteria laid down by law. 2. The rights of judges and prosecutors to remuneration may be reduced or suspended only in the cases provided for in this Law. The remuneration of judges and prosecutors shall be set by a special law. …’
5 Under Article 81 of the law on the former statute for judges and prosecutors: ‘1. Judges and prosecutors with 20 consecutive years’ service in the judiciary shall, on retirement or on termination of service for other reasons not attributable to them, receive an allowance equal to seven gross monthly seniority allowances, taxed in accordance with the law. 2. The allowance provided for in paragraph 1 shall be granted only once in the course of a judge or prosecutor’s career and shall be recorded in accordance with the law. …’
6 According to the explanatory memorandum of Legea nr. 285/2010 privind salarizarea în anul 2011 a personalului plătit din fonduri publice (Law No 285/2010 on the remuneration in 2011 of staff paid from public funds) of 28 December 2010 (Monitorul Oficial al României, Part I, No 878 of 28 December 2010; ‘Law No 285/2010’), ‘in 2010, despite slight improvements in the economic situation, financial conditions have proved to be more difficult than initially foreseen, with economic activity in Romania in recent months continuing to be marked by the recession’.
7 Paragraph 13(1) of that law provides: ‘The statutory provisions relating to the granting of assistance or, where applicable, severance payments upon retirement, withdrawal, termination of service or transfer to the military reserve are not to apply in 2011.’
8 The suspension of those severance payments was renewed each year until 2023 inclusive, most recently by the Ordonanța de urgență a Guvernului nr. 168/2022, privind unele măsuri fiscal-bugetare, prorogarea unor termene, precum și pentru modificarea și completarea unor acte normative (Government Emergency Order No 168/2022 on certain fiscal and budgetary measures, extending certain deadlines and amending and supplementing certain legislative acts) of 8 December 2022 (Monitorul Oficial al României, Part I, No 1186 of 9 December 2022).
9 Legea nr. 303/2022 privind statutul judecătorilor și procurorilor (Law No 303/2022 on the statute for judges and prosecutors) of 15 November 2022 (Monitorul Oficial al României, Part I, No 1102 of 16 November 2022; ‘the Law on the new statute for judges and prosecutors’), which entered into force on 16 December 2022, repealed the Law on the former statute for judges and prosecutors.
10 The appellants in the main proceedings, who are former judges, did not receive, at the time of their retirement, the payment equal to seven gross monthly seniority allowances provided for in Article 81(1) of the Law on the former status of judges and prosecutors (‘the severance bonus’). In fact, Article 13(1) of Law No 285/2010 and the provisions which had extended the suspension of the payment of the severance bonus continuously until 2023 inclusive, had the effect of suspending payment of that bonus for thirteen consecutive years, until its repeal, on 16 December 2022, by the Law on the new statute for judges and prosecutors.
11 The appellants in the main proceedings brought an action before the Tribunalul București (Regional Court, Bucharest, Romania) seeking, inter alia, to challenge the suspension of the payment of the severance bonus and to obtain payment of damages corresponding to the amount of that bonus which they did not receive.
12 By judgment of 9 May 2023, that court dismissed that action as premature, on the ground, in essence, that, in view of the repeated suspension of Article 81(1) of the Law on the former statute for judges and prosecutors, by successive legislative acts considered to be consistent with the Romanian Constitution, the severance bonus did not become part of the assets of the appellants in the main proceedings, the right to that bonus being subject to a new manifestation by the legislature.
13 The appellants in the main proceedings brought an appeal against that judgment before the Curtea de Apel București (Court of Appeal, Bucharest, Romania), which is the referring court, claiming, inter alia, that, in the light of the principle of judicial independence, which follows from Article 19 TEU, the refusal to grant them the severance bonus infringed their right to property. They also consider that the suspension of the payment of that bonus, which had been justified by the major economic crisis experienced by Romania in 2010, should have been only temporary in nature. Accordingly, the repeal of Article 81(1) of the Law on the former statute for judges and prosecutors is disproportionate.
14 The referring court notes, as a preliminary point, that the severance bonus, which was intended to thank judges for carrying out their duties without interruption and under respectful conditions for at least 20 years, was considered to be a salary bonus or remuneration, since it arose directly from an employment relationship.
15 That court states that the decision to suspend payment of that bonus, for the years 2010 to 2022, was taken as a result of the pressing need to eliminate the Romanian State’s excessive budget deficit. It states, in that regard, that the explanatory memorandum to several emergency orders adopted by the Government, which suspended payment of the severance bonus, highlighted the risk that, in the absence of the adoption of wage reduction measures of that type, Romania’s budget deficit would exceed the threshold of 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) provided for in Article 126(2) TFEU, read in conjunction with Article 1 of the Protocol (No 12) on the excessive deficit procedure, annexed to the EU and FEU Treaties, which could lead the Commission to initiate an excessive deficit procedure against that Member State.
16 Although the Curtea Constituțională (Constitutional Court, Romania) took the view that the right to the severance bonus did not come within the category of fundamental rights, with the result that the Romanian legislature was free to abolish the payment of that bonus, the referring court is uncertain whether the long-term suspension of such a payment, followed by the abolition of such a bonus, infringes the principle of judicial independence, which follows from Article 19 TEU. Indeed, the financial stability of judges, including retired judges, is one of the guarantees of judicial independence. Various international instruments also emphasise this point, in particular paragraph 54 of Recommendation CM/Rec (2010)12 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, entitled ‘Judges: independence, efficiency and responsibilities’, adopted on 17 November 2010 (‘the 2010 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers’) and paragraph 6.4 of the European Charter on the Statute for Judges, adopted in Strasbourg on 10 July 1998 by the Council of Europe.
17 In those circumstances, the Curtea de Apel București (Court of Appeal, Bucharest) decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following question to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling: ‘Must the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU (read in conjunction with Article 2 TEU) be interpreted as meaning that the principle of judicial independence precludes the repeal, in respect of Romanian judges with 20 consecutive years’ service in the judiciary, of the right to receive, on retirement or on termination of service for other reasons not attributable to them, a sum equal to seven gross monthly seniority allowances, in the event that the exercise of that right to remuneration is suspended prior to repeal, on a continuous basis and for a prolonged period, for reasons connected principally to the need to eliminate an excessive budget deficit (the legislature expressly invokes the threshold of 3% of [GDP] laid down in the [FEU] Treaty …)?’
18 By its question, the referring court asks, in essence, whether the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU, read in conjunction with Article 2 TEU, must be interpreted as meaning that the principle of judicial independence precludes the repeal, after it had been continuously suspended for a long period, for reasons connected principally with the need to eliminate an excessive budget deficit of the Member State concerned, of the legislation of that State under which judges with 20 years’ continuous service in the judiciary received, at the time of their retirement or upon leaving the service for other reasons not attributable to them, a severance payment.
19 As is clear from settled case-law, although the organisation of justice in the Member States comes within the competence of those Member States, they are nonetheless required, when exercising that competence, to comply with their obligations deriving from EU law, in particular where they lay down the detailed rules for determining judges’ remuneration (see, to that effect, judgments of 18 May 2021, Asociația ‘Forumul Judecătorilor din România’ and Others, C‑83/19, C‑127/19, C‑195/19, C‑291/19, C‑355/19 and C‑397/19, EU:C:2021:393, paragraph 111, and of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraph 33).
20 Article 19 TEU, which gives concrete expression to the value of the rule of law affirmed in Article 2 TEU, entrusts the responsibility for ensuring the full application of EU law in all Member States and the judicial protection that individuals derive from EU law to national courts and tribunals and to the Court of Justice. To that end, maintaining the independence of those bodies is essential. That requirement, which is inherent in the task of adjudication, forms in fact part of the essence of the fundamental right to effective judicial protection and to a fair trial, which is of cardinal importance as a guarantee that all the rights which individuals derive from EU law will be protected and that the values common to the Member States set out in Article 2 TEU, in particular the value of the rule of law, will be safeguarded (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraphs 47 and 48 and the case-law cited).
21 The concept of ‘judicial independence’ presupposes, in particular, that the body concerned exercises its judicial functions wholly autonomously, without being subject to any hierarchical constraint or subordinated to any other body and without taking orders or instructions from any source whatsoever, and that it is thus protected against external interventions or pressure liable to impair the independent judgment of its members and to influence their decisions. Like the protection against removal from office of the members of the body concerned, the receipt by those members of a level of remuneration commensurate with the importance of the functions they carry out constitutes a guarantee essential to judicial independence (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraph 49 and the case-law cited).
22 Although, in accordance with the principle of the separation of powers which characterises the operation of the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary must be guaranteed in relation to the legislature and the executive of a Member State, the mere fact that the legislature and the executive of a Member State are involved in determining judges’ remuneration is not, in itself, such as to create a dependence of those judges on the legislature or executive or to give rise to doubts as to the independence or impartiality of the judges. Member States have broad discretion when drawing up their budgets and choosing between the various items of public expenditure. That broad discretion includes determining the method of calculating that expenditure and, in particular, judges’ remuneration, the national legislature and executive being best placed to take into account the particular socio-economic context of the Member State in which that budget must be drawn up and judicial independence guaranteed (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraphs 50 and 51).
23 The fact remains nonetheless that national rules on judges’ remuneration must not give rise to reasonable doubts, in the minds of individuals, as to the imperviousness of the judges concerned to external factors and as to their neutrality with respect to the interests before them. To that end, charters, reports and other documents drawn up by bodies of the Council of Europe or under the aegis of the United Nations may provide relevant guidance for the interpretation of EU law where national provisions are adopted on the subject (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraphs 52 and 53).
24 As the Court held in the judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė (C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraph 65), the legislature and executive of a Member State may derogate from national legislation, which objectively defines the detailed rules for determining judges’ remuneration, by deciding to reduce the amount of that remuneration, subject to a number of requirements being met.
25 First, in accordance with the principle of legal certainty, a measure reducing judges’ salaries or their retirement pension must be provided for by law and must be objective, foreseeable and transparent. This law may provide for the involvement of the social partners, in particular the organisations representing the judges concerned. In that context, the transparency of the legislative procedure contributes to guaranteeing judicial independence (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraphs 54 and 66).
26 Second, a measure reducing judges’ salaries or their retirement pension must be justified by an objective in the general interest, such as a requirement to eliminate an excessive government deficit, within the meaning of Article 126(1) TFEU, it being specified that the possibility for a Member State to rely on such a requirement does not presuppose that a procedure under Protocol No 12 on the excessive deficit procedure, annexed to the EU and FEU Treaties, is initiated against it (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraphs 67 and 68 and the case-law cited).
27 The budgetary reasons justifying the adoption of a measure derogating from the rules of ordinary law on judges’ remuneration must be clearly set out. In addition, subject to duly justified exceptional circumstances, those measures must not be aimed specifically at members of the national courts alone and must form part of a more general framework seeking to ensure that a wider set of members of the national civil service contribute to the budgetary effort which is being pursued (see, to that effect, judgments of 27 February 2018, Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses, C‑64/16, EU:C:2018:117, paragraph 49, and of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraph 69).
28 As point 54 of the 2010 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers provides, ‘specific legal provisions should be introduced as a safeguard against a reduction in remuneration aimed specifically at judges’. By contrast, as stated in point 57 of the explanatory memorandum to that recommendation, ‘public policies aiming at the general reduction of civil servants’ remuneration are not in contradiction with the requirement to avoid reducing specifically judges’ remuneration’.
29 Consequently, when a Member State adopts budgetary restriction measures affecting its officials and public servants, it may, in a society in which solidarity prevails, as stated in Article 2 TEU, decide to apply those measures also to national judges (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraph 71).
30 Third, in accordance with the principle of proportionality, which constitutes a general principle of EU law (judgment of 8 March 2022, Bezirkshauptmannschaft Hartberg-Fürstenfeld (Direct effect), C‑205/20, EU:C:2022:168, paragraph 31), a measure seeking to reduce judges’ remuneration must be appropriate for securing the attainment of the objective of general interest pursued, be limited to what is strictly necessary in order to attain that objective and not be disproportionate to that objective, which means that the importance of that objective must be weighed against the seriousness of the interference with the principle of judicial independence.
31 On that basis, a measure of that nature, which appears appropriate for the attainment of the objective of general interest referred to in paragraph 26 above, must remain exceptional and temporary, inasmuch as it must not apply beyond the period necessary for the attainment of the legitimate objective pursued, such as the elimination of an excessive government deficit. Furthermore, the impact of that measure on judges’ remuneration must not be disproportionate to the objective pursued (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraphs 73 and 74).
32 Nevertheless, in view of the broad discretion conferred on the Member States when drawing up their budgets and deciding between the various items of public expenditure, as recalled in paragraph 22 of the present judgment, it is open to a Member State to adopt a legislative measure which seeks not to derogate from the basic legislation fixing judges’ remuneration in order to deal with a budgetary crisis but to amend that legislation for the future, by reducing their remuneration, in order to improve its long-term budgetary position.
33 The principle of judicial independence, which follows from the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU, read in conjunction with Article 2 TEU, cannot preclude such an amendment, even if it is not limited in time, provided that the newly set level of judges’ remuneration remains sufficient to ensure their independence.
34 The preservation of judicial independence requires in fact that, notwithstanding the application to the judiciary of a budgetary restriction measure, the level of remuneration of judges is always commensurate with the importance of the functions they carry out, so that they remain shielded from external interventions or pressure liable to jeopardise their independent judgment and to influence their decisions, in accordance with the case-law referred to in paragraph 21 above.
35 In that regard, it is apparent from the case-law arising from the judgment of 7 February 2019, Escribano Vindel (C‑49/18, EU:C:2019:106, paragraphs 70, 71 and 73), that the level of remuneration of judges must be sufficiently high, in the light of the socio-economic context of the Member State concerned, in order to confer on them a certain economic independence to protect them against any external interference or pressure that might undermine the neutrality of their decisions. Thus, the level of that remuneration must be such as to protect judges against the risk of corruption.
36 In order to assess the adequacy of judges’ remuneration, account must be taken, inter alia, of the economic, social and financial situation of the Member State concerned. From that point of view, it is appropriate to compare the average remuneration of judges to the average salary in that State (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraph 62).
37 The considerations set out in the two preceding paragraphs apply mutatis mutandis to retired judges. Indeed, the fact that serving judges have a guarantee that they will receive a sufficiently high pension after their retirement is such as to protect them against the risk of corruption during their period of service.
38 Reference should be made, in that regard, to paragraph 54 of the 2010 Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers, according to which ‘guarantees should exist … for the payment [to judges] of a retirement pension which should be in a reasonable relationship to their level of remuneration when working’. Similarly, it is apparent from paragraph 6.4 of the European Charter on the Statute for Judges referred to in paragraph 16 of the present judgment that that status must guarantee that judges ‘who have reached the age of judicial retirement after the requisite time spent as judges … benefit from payment of a retirement pension, the level of which must be as close as possible to the level of their final salary as a judge’.
39 Fourth, a salary reduction measure must be capable of being subject to effective judicial review, in accordance with the procedural rules laid down by the law of the Member State concerned.
40 Although in proceedings under Article 267 TFEU it is not for the Court to apply the rules of EU law to a particular case, it may, in order to provide an answer of use to the referring courts, provide guidance based on the documents relating to the main proceedings and on the written observations before it, in order to enable those courts to give judgment (judgment of 25 February 2025, Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku and Adoreikė, C‑146/23 and C‑374/23, EU:C:2025:109, paragraph 77 and the case-law cited).
41 In that regard, it should be noted, in the first place, that the repeal of Article 81(1) of the Law on the former statute for judges and prosecutors by the Law on the new statute for judges and prosecutors was, in the present case, motivated by the pressing need to eliminate the excessive budget deficit of the Member State concerned, as stated in particular in the explanatory memorandum to Law No 285/2010, as referred to in paragraph 6 of the present judgment. More generally, as is apparent from paragraph 15 of the present judgment, the referring court notes that the explanatory memorandum for several emergency orders adopted by the Government, which suspended payment of the severance bonus, highlighted the risk of Romania’s budget deficit exceeding the threshold of 3% of GDP laid down in Article 126(2) TFEU, read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No 12 on the excessive deficit procedure, annexed to the EU and FEU Treaties, and the risk, for that Member State, of having to face the initiation by the Commission of an excessive deficit procedure, if salary reduction measures are not adopted as a matter of urgency.
42 In the second place, the abolition of the severance bonus leads to a limited reduction in the amount of Romanian judges’ remuneration. In addition, that measure does not affect Romanian judges’ main remuneration but an additional remuneration, which could be received only once, at the time of retirement. Accordingly, subject to the verifications which it is for the referring court to carry out, the abolition of that bonus does not appear to be disproportionate.
43 In the third place, as the Commission pointed out in its written observations, relying on Figure 34 of its Communication COM(2023) 309 final, entitled ‘2023 EU Justice Scoreboard’, the average annual salary of Romanian judges represents, at the beginning of their career, 2.9 times the annual average gross salary in Romania and, as regards judges of supreme courts, 5.8 times the Romanian average gross salary.
44 It follows from the two preceding paragraphs that, despite the repeal of Article 81(1) of the Law on the former statute for judges and prosecutors, the remuneration of Romanian judges remains commensurate with the importance of the functions they carry out.
45 In the fourth place, the suspension and subsequent repeal of that provision form part of a broader policy of reducing the remuneration of Romanian civil servants. Thus, Article 13(1) of Law No 285/2010 provided that, ‘the statutory provisions relating to the granting of assistance or, where applicable, severance payments upon retirement, withdrawal, termination of service or transfer to the military reserve are not to apply in 2011’. As the Commission stated in its written observations, the abolition of the aid accompanying transfer to the military reserve concerned military personnel, police officers and officials enjoying a special status in the prison management system.
46 In the fifth place, in the context of the present case, the repeal of Article 81(1) of the Law on the former statute for judges and prosecutors, after that provision had been suspended continuously for 13 years, contributed to clarifying the state of national law and, in so doing, to ensuring legal certainty.
47 Moreover, and subject to the verifications which it is for the referring court to carry out, the appellants in the main proceedings cannot rely on any legitimate expectation that the severance bonus will be maintained. As is apparent from the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, ‘there must be a “sufficient basis in national law” for a legitimate expectation of being able to continue to enjoy the property, for example where it is confirmed by well-established case-law of the courts or where it is based on a legislative provision or a statutory act concerning the proprietary interest in question’ (ECtHR, 23 September 2014, Valle Pierimpiè Società Agricola S.P.A v. Italy, CE:ECHR:2014:0923JUD004615411, § 38).
48 In the present case, it follows both from the case-law of the Curtea Constituțională (Constitutional Court), referred to in paragraph 16 of the present judgment, and from Article 66(3) of Law No 24/2000 referred to in paragraph 3 of the present judgment, that, since 2010, the right to receive a severance bonus cannot be regarded as having a sufficient basis in Romanian law. Indeed, the Curtea Constituțională (Constitutional Court) took the view that since the right to the severance bonus did not constitute a fundamental right, the Romanian legislature was free to abolish the payment of that bonus. As regards Article 66(3), it provides that the repeal of a provision that has been suspended may be the subject of an express provision taking effect on the date of expiry of the suspension.
49 In the light of all of the foregoing considerations, the answer to the question referred is that the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU, read in conjunction with Article 2 TEU, must be interpreted as meaning that the principle of judicial independence does not preclude the repeal, after it had been continuously suspended for a long period, for reasons connected principally with the need to eliminate an excessive budget deficit of the Member State concerned, of the legislation of that State under which judges with 20 years’ continuous service in the judiciary received, at the time of their retirement or upon leaving the service for other reasons not attributable to them, a severance payment.
50 Since these proceedings are, for the parties to the main proceedings, a step in the action pending before the referring court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court. Costs incurred in submitting observations to the Court, other than the costs of those parties, are not recoverable.