Admiterea cererii de recuzare a judecătorului pentru lipsă de empatie. Notă critică
Judicial Recusal for Alleged Lack of Empathy. A Critical Note

Summary/Abstract: This study offers a critical examination of the expansion of judicial recusal grounds beyond their strictly procedural scope, by reference to axiological criteria such as empathy or a judge’s public discourse. The analysis is prompted by a ruling of the Bucharest Court of Appeal that upheld a motion for recusal based on a “reasonable suspicion” of lack of impartiality, inferred not from the judge’s procedural conduct in the case, but from prior public statements concerning the role of empathy in criminal adjudication. The central thesis advanced here is that the decision reflects a conceptual conflation between judicial empathy—as a professional virtue and a cognitive instrument of deliberation—and procedural impartiality, understood as a legally verifiable guarantee. Equating the two transforms recusal from a safeguard of the right to a fair trial into a mechanism of axiological selection of judicial panels. The methodology combines an analysis of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and of the Romanian Constitutional Court with doctrinal exegesis and a critical assessment of the judicial reasoning employed. The findings indicate the absence of a concrete examination of the impugned statements, the presence of an unjustified logical leap, and the risk of instrumentalizing recusal against firm and outspoken judges. Such an approach may generate a chilling effect on judicial freedom of expression, contrary to established European standards. The study concludes that empathy pertains to the quality of adjudication—subject to scrutiny through reasoning requirements and appellate review—rather than to the domain of procedural incompatibilities.

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