Daily Times

A power struggle between Romania’s government and judiciary is reaching a tipping point that risks driving a new wedge between the European Union and its eastern members over democratic standards.

Justice Minister Tudorel Toader has said he will soon decide the future of the prosecutor general, the last major figure in an anti-corruption drive which has won praise from Brussels for exposing high-level graft, including the theft of EU funds.

Augustin Lazar oversees around 2,500 prosecutors, including anti-organised crime unit DIICOT and anti-corruption unit DNA.

If Toader decides to trigger Lazar’s dismissal, it will mark the end of an era for Romania’s prosecutors. The head of the DNA has already been fired and DIICOT leader’s mandate has expired.

The government says the units have ruined innocent lives. Anti-corruption prosecutors have secured almost 5,000 convictions over the past five years, including 27 lawmakers and 83 mayors across parties, as well as ministers, county council heads, state firm managers and magistrates.

Among them is Liviu Dragnea, leader of the ruling Social Democrats, who was barred from becoming prime minister by a conviction in the first of three investigations against him. He denies all wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a political witch-hunt by the judiciary.

In recent months, his party has launched a slew of bills to overhaul criminal law and procedures to raise the burden of proof. It has also set up a unit to investigate judges and prosecutors for possible crimes and aims to reorganise judges panels.

European diplomats, who are seeking sanctions against fellow east European states Poland and Hungary for flouting democratic values, are concerned Romania is following suit.

“Moving Backwards”

“There is now the real risk that things are moving backwards in a way that would be damaging not only for Romanian democracy but for the place that it has built as an EU member state,” the EU executive’s First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said at a meeting of the European Parliament this month.

“The procedure that has been started recently in relation to the general prosecutor raises similarly worrying concerns.”

An EU advisory body for constitutional rights, the Venice Commission, will issue an opinion on Romania later on Friday. Its preliminary view said parts of the judicial overhaul “are likely to undermine the independence of Romanian judges and prosecutors, and public confidence in the judiciary.”

Any punitive measures against Romania similar to those the EU is seeking for Hungary and Poland will depend on the outcome of the wider legal changes the Social Democrats have initiated.

On Monday, the government tightened hiring criteria for DNA and DIICOT prosecutors via an emergency decree; as a result, over 40 of those prosecutors will be reassigned to other work. It said this was to address the Venice Commission’s concerns.

Dragnea and senior party members say they aim to curb abuses by prosecutors and secret services, invoking the spectre of a “parallel state” that illegally wiretaps them.

DNA chief Laura Codruta Kovesi lost her job in July after an assessment by the justice minister similar to the one Lazar is undergoing now, despite resistance from the judicial watchdog and the president.

Other prosecutors and judges have had inspectors in their offices looking for flaws in their work.

“There is a tactic of making examples out of high profile legal professionals,” one anti-corruption prosecutor told Reuters on condition of anonymity to protect pending cases.

“They’re trying to show what happens if you don’t behave. And it is working. Some people in the judiciary are starting to think, why I am fighting this?”

Minister Toader triggered the evaluation of Lazar, who oversees the prosecution service, or public ministry, in late August, saying the decision did not come out of the blue.

“Over time, I have noticed how the public ministry has veered away from its constitutional role of guaranteeing citizens’ rights and liberties,” he said. “As before (with Kovesi), I will make a radiograph of the prosecutor general’s management and I will reach a conclusion.”

The minister told private television station Antena3 earlier this week his conclusion was days away.

Lazar, who was appointed three years ago and has accused the government of trying to politicise the judiciary, said prosecutors’ work was transparent and he did not fear being dismissed.

“It is unfortunately a very sensitive time for the Romanian judiciary and rule of law,” he told a conference after the minister’s announcement, the only time he addressed the issue.

“It’s a context in which manipulating public opinion is often used as an instrument to destabilise prosecutors’ work.”

Published in Daily Times, October 20^th 2018.