The Cooperation and Verification Mechanism and the Judicial Reforms in Romania in the Light of the EU Rule of Law

The edification of the European democracy through law is a complex and long-term process which requires an implementation of judicial principles and values in the political and institutional area. In many situations from the last period, the EU documents establishing the main directions in shaping democracy are received by Member States from divergent positions. This article will try to disseminate the European conceptions on the rule of law and how these are viewed from the angle of Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. Last report – which has been published in 2018 after the parliamentary debates on judicial reforms in Romania - has produced controversial and ambiguous official reactions of the political actors. In the Romanian political sphere, actual conceptions on democracy are quite different in substance from those elaborated at the European level. The paper has two main objectives: a review of the aims and scopes of Cooperation and Verification Mechanism to protect the rule of law at the EU level and the analysis of proposals for judicial reforms in Romania from the perspective of the above concept. Questions are interconnected and necessitate comparative methods and text analysis to obtain a realistic, global and specific view. This article could be useful to bring up an interpretation based primarily on documents and institutional decisions explaining the way in which both the EU decision-makers and the officials of the Member States perceive the importance of the rule of law in the European democratic paradigm.