Magistrates’ salaries: Bylykbashi says draft law violates the Constitution; Manja says pay cuts were never on the table

The draft law on magistrates’ salaries sparked heated debate in Parliament, with the opposition and the majority clashing over the financial treatment of judges and prosecutors.

Democratic Party MP Oerd Bylykbashi accused the majority of bringing a bill that contradicts the Constitutional Court’s ruling.

“What you are about to vote on today is in flagrant violation of the Constitutional Court’s decision. This clash is not a constitutional conflict — it is a constitutional crisis deliberately caused by the government,” he said.

Bylykbashi said the draft law would end up back before the Constitutional Court and urged the majority to withdraw it and implement the court’s ruling.

“This draft law will go back to the Constitutional Court today. You have no way out. So you have one path: withdraw this draft law and don’t vote on it, but sit down and implement the Constitutional Court’s decision, which sets entirely different criteria from the ones you brought today,” he said.

From the majority, Socialist MP Ulsi Manja emphasized that the financial independence of the justice system is part of the judiciary’s independence, while also underscoring the importance of public finances.

Manja said the case taken to the Constitutional Court was not about lowering salaries, but about the size of the increase for judges and prosecutors.

“What you are doing today is crying your hearts out over judges’ salaries. The financial independence of the justice system is an element of the independence of this branch of power. We went to the Constitutional Court not to lower salaries, but over the scale of the increase in prosecutors’ and judges’ pay. We went there only to determine the size of the increase — never to lower it.

The financial independence of the justice system is important, but so are public finances. We consider the financial treatment of judges and prosecutors as a standard this majority set with the justice reform. Once we vote this draft law today, to fill the legal gap, then the government, Parliament and the justice system should sit down and even invite international partners, to see how the system works there and how their counterparts in Europe are paid,” Manja said.