The article titled “The ROMATSA Case: The Judge Is Not the Advocate of His Own Decision,” written by Lecturer Cristi Danileț, Ph.D., of “Petre Andrei” University in Iași.

This study examines the relationship a judge maintains with his or her own decision after it has been rendered, using the ROMATSA case as a starting point. The proposed thesis is that procedural disengagement must be accompanied by jurisdictional detachment: the judge may continue to believe in the correctness of the decision, but must not make upholding it a personal stake. The analysis distinguishes between explaining the judgment, defending judicial independence, and publicly advocating for the legality of one’s own decision, drawing on CCJE Opinion No. 25/2022, the Bangalore Principles, Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)12, and the case law of the Privy Council. On a philosophical level, the study links this requirement to the judge’s third-party status, to Ricœur’s “just distance,” and to Kojève’s concept of the impartial and disinterested third party, proposing the notions of “judicial detachment” and “the virtue of detachment.”

Keywords: judge; jurisdictional assignment; the virtue of detachment; impartiality; judicial independence; freedom of expression.