Haste spoils the job.
The Laws of Justice, the three-law-package on the judicial system, had an accelerated legislative process under the justification of lifting the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. The same argument was used in 2009 and the consequences can be seen even now, an example being the recent decision of the High Court of Cassation and Justice regarding the interpretation of decisions made by the Constitutional Court regarding the prescription of crimes.
The CVM has been hovering over us since we joined the 2007 in 2007 and this Government has committed to complying with its recommendations, as well as those of GRECO and the Venice Commission. However, the Justice laws passed through Parliament without the opinion of the Venice Commission and the ruling coalition recognised that the legislative package, in the adopted form, is a "compromise".
Recent weeks caught us attending the discussions of the parliamentary committees on the subject of these laws. We have now put together some useful information in the analysis below. We wrote down a small history of our trip under the CVM, looked at where the last report places us and looked at just how much of the checklist the new Justice laws manage to tick.
