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PG Lazar: the current period is " a difficult one for Romania's justice and the rule of law"
The manipulation of the public opinion is frequently used to destabilise the proscutors' activity, and the Public Prosecution Service (MP) permanently acted in a transparent manner, in the spirit of finding the truth, Romania's Prosecutor General Augustin Lazar stated.
He labeled the current period as "being a difficult one for Romania's justice and the rule of law," and released to the public the correspondence with the Justice Ministry and the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM).
"It's a context in which the manipulation of the public opinion is frequently used as an instrument to destabilise the activity of prosecutors. My statement aims to establish the truth regarding an extremely debated topic - that of the collaboration protocols with the SRI [the Romanian Intelligence Service]. The Public Prosecution Service has the mission to provide the truth based on evidence. (...) I am releasing the correspondence with the Justice Ministry and the CSM to the public, the truth doesn't have to bother anyone, it is singular. From this correspondence it clearly results that the Public Prosecution Service permanently acted in a transparent manner, by informing the CSM and the Justice Ministry in respect to all the demarches initiated with regards to the protocols; consistently, for declassifying the protocols of December 2016, with the first demarche on 13 March 2017, in a legal framework which represented an institutional way of working for Romania. See in this regard the similar protocols concluded by the SRI with the Judicial Inspectorate, with the CSM, the High Court and other institutions of the Romanian state," Lazar told a news conference.
According to him, all the protocols concluded by the SRI have been disclosed by the parties, being concluded in a legal framework as a general institutional form of work in Romania at the time of their conclusion, "and then dismantled promptly and without effect," in the context of suspicions which emerged in the public space.
On the other hand, Attorney General Augustin Lazar says that the number of magistrates with files at DNA is part of a manipulation for people with modest intellectual level.
He explained that the high number of prosecutors and judges that have case files at the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) can be explained by the fact that various defendants have filed charges against magistrates and upon every denounce an investigation was launched.
"There is a great fuss and a certain figure is being manipulated, which was requested by the Judicial Inspection of the National Anticorruption Directorate, with several thousands prosecutors and judges, who apparently had files at DNA. Well, upon the checks we carried out within the Public Ministry, we will come with a larger number of judges and prosecutors, who apparently had files at the Public Ministry. What are these, actually? Unfortunately, in the last years, all defendants have acquired very well their right to have access to justice. Not one defendant hesitated in filing a complaint against the police officer that registered the criminal case, of the prosecutor that exercised the penal action and of the judge or judges, because there are more judges in the panel, who apparently have condemned them in an abusive way," the Attorney General declared for RFI radio station.
Augustin Lazar also appreciated that manipulating this statistic could only address to certain people "with modest intellectual level."
"We already have thousands of files, based on the free access to justice, which is understood in this embarrassing manner by some people. We need to start an actual investigation for every denunciation that these people make and here is how you can manipulate a statistic, showing that those thousands of judges and prosecutors apparently were kept, in order to be blackmailed at the opportune time - by whom? - by DNA, which is why they achieved so many convictions. Well, it is a manipulation for people with modest intellectual level," he said.
The Judicial Inspection transmitted on Friday that on July 30, at the National Anticorruption Directorate there were 415 pending cases, which involve a total of 474 judges and 346 prosecutors.
Also, from January 1, 2014 to July 30, 2018, DNA settled 1,965 cases concerning 3,420 magistrates (2,193 judges and 1,227 prosecutors).
The information was supplied to Judicial Inspection by DNA after the launch of a targeted inspection concerning files in which magistrates are being investigated.