A member of the PCR before and after World War II, he was also clandestinely active within the Communist Party of Hungary (KMP) in Northern Transylvania and Budapest between 1940 and 1944.
As Comptroller General of the Ministry of Finances and later president of the State Pricing Committee, he was a collaborator of Vasile Luca, who had been assigned the position of Minister and that of vice-Premier.
While heading the State Pricing Committee (Comitetul de Stat pentru Prețuri), Cernicica reported a drop in the standard of living—a conclusion at odds with the official dogma of its "continuous growth".
As first vice-president of Centrocoop board, which directed activity in the service area, he promoted paying higher acquisition prices to farmers (position endorsed by Vasile Luca).
The specific sentences were handed over to the military judges on a note from the Central Committee's Politburo, hand-written by Gheorghiu-Dej's collaborator Iosif Chișinevschi.
Vasile Luca, Alexandru Iacob, Ivan Solymos, and Dumitru Cernicica, the co-defendants of the trial, were officially rehabilitated in 1968, three years after Ceaușescu's succession to the deceased Gheorghiu-Dej.