Radio România Internațional

Tag: anti-corruption investigations

  • November 29, 2023 UPDATE

    November 29, 2023 UPDATE

    PENSIONS – President
    Klaus Iohannis has ratified the public pension law, which increases the pension
    point by 13.8%, from 360 EUR at present to some 410 EUR starting January 1, 2024. Starting September
    1 next year, pensions will also go up after recalcuations that will observe a
    new formula. The retirement age for men and women will be brought to the same
    level gradually until 2035. In other news, the Constitutional Court on Tuesday
    ruled that former Romanian MPs are to keep their special pensions, while
    Parliament is allowed to eliminate them in the future. In June, Parliament
    eliminated special pensions awarded to deputies and senators, as Romania
    pledged to eliminate them as part of its Recovery and Resilience Plan.




    PROSECUTION – The
    Senate has greenlit the prosecution of former Liberal Prime Minister Florin
    Cîțu, whom anti-corruption prosecutors accuse of abuse of office in an
    investigation into the abusive purchase of anti-COVID-19 vaccines. Targeted in
    the same case are also former USR Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu and Ioana Mihăilă, whose immunity was lifted after Klaus Iohannis
    signed the anti-prosecutors’ request.




    CORRUPTION – The mayor of the
    city of Baia Mare (north-west), Cătălin Cherecheş, who fled the country after
    being sentenced to 5 years in prison in a corruption case, was apprehended in
    Germany, the Romanian Police announced. He was identified and taken into
    custody by the police in Bavaria based on the information provided by the
    Romanian authorities. Sources close to the investigation say the former mayor
    was aided by an aunt and was attempting to leave Germany when he was caught.
    Cherecheş had left the country on Friday, using the ID of a family member, and
    the procedures for returning him to the country are under way.




    NATIONAL DAY – The
    Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) is organizing over 30 events abroad marking
    the National Day of Romania on December 1, including concerts, exhibitions,
    film screenings, debates, theatre performances and literary events. Among the
    highlights are the Madrigal Choir tour of the USA, plays staged by the National
    Theatre of Sibiu in Paris, a recital by soprano Teodora Gheorghiu and
    bass-baritone Sorin Coliban in London, or performances by violinist Alexandru
    Tomescu and pianist Sînziana Mircea in Beijing, Budapest and Vienna.
    A number of concerts, film screenings, photo exhibitions are also planned in
    Spain, while the Institute’s agenda in Italy includes a series of folk-inspired
    carol concerts.




    MEETING – The
    president of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, on Wednesday met Eastern-Catholic priests
    at the Blaj Bishopric as part of an event marking 75 years since the communist
    authorities banned the Eastern-Catholic Church of Romania. Defined as an
    official Church of Romania under the Constitution in the interwar period, the
    Eastern-Catholic Church was outlawed after the war by the puppet regime
    installed by Soviet occupation troops. Countless Eastern-Catholic bishops,
    priests and churchgoers were imprisoned, many of them dying in communist
    detention. The Eastern-Catholic Church was reinstated after the 1989 anti-communist
    revolution. (AMP & VP)

  • Abuse of office, cap amounts and principles

    Abuse of office, cap amounts and principles

    The Constitutional Court of Romania has rejected the appeal made by Bombonica Prodana, the former wife of the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Liviu Dragnea, against a certain article in the Criminal Code which regulates the abuse of office. The application to challenge the respective article was invoked in a file in which she was prosecuted together with her former husband and several former employees of the Social Assistance Directorate of Teleorman County (in the south). The Court judges decided that it was up to Parliament to regulate the value and the seriousness of the damage caused by the offense.



    Bombonica Prodana made this application in March and her lawyer said the application had to be submitted to the Constitutional Court because, in her case, the damage was below 50,000 euros and so, it should not be considered a criminal case. In the same case Liviu Dragnea was prosecuted for instigation to abuse of office and intellectual forgery. At the time, Bombonica Prodana was employed by the Child Protection Directorate of Teleorman County, an institution subordinated to the Teleorman County Council led by Liviu Dragnea.



    Investigators say that Liviu Dragnea made several employees of the Social Assistance Directorate fictitiously hire two persons who were members of the Social Democratic Party’s local organization in Teleorman. Although the two were working exclusively for the Social Democratic Party, their salaries were paid from public money. If Liviu Dragnea receives a new sentence in this trial, he also risks executing the two-year suspended sentence he received last year in the so-called “Referendum” case.



    This would definitively push him out of the political scene, which he has clearly dominated after the December 2016 elections. In the “Referendum” case, Liviu Dragnea was prosecuted because, in 2012, before and during the unfolding of the referendum for the impeachment of the then president Traian Basescu, he put in place a system, in his capacity as Secretary General of the Social Democratic Party, meant to modify the result of the vote in order to force a quorum which would have led to the president’s impeachment.



    At present, tens of mayors and presidents of county councils have received a sentence or are being investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate for abuse of office. In early 2017 the Government tried to solve their problems. The famous Government decree no. 13 meant to amend the criminal code, which was passed at the end of January and subsequently repealed, stipulated that people could be indicted for abuse of office if the damage caused was of at least 44 thousand euros. This controversial decision then made hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in what was the largest-scale protest since the fall of Communism in December 1989. (Translated by L. Simion)

  • High-Profile Corruption Cases

    High-Profile Corruption Cases

    In 2014 alone the National Anti-Corruption Directorate had 1,500 convictions, with ministers, MPs, magistrates and law enforcement officers on the list of indictees. High-profile corruption cases, such as that of Microsoft, involving nine ministers, the Lukoil or the EADS cases proved that, for the first time in its recent history, Romania was determined to hold accountable public servants for misuse of public funds, irrespective of the position they hold. In the last two years the Directorate has waged a relentless war against graft. On Monday, former Interior Minister Gabriel Berca was brought to court for influence peddling.



    The same measure was imposed on former MP Mihai Banu and his son. According to anti-corruption prosecutors, Gabriel Berca used Mihai Banu to demand and receive large sums of money from a businessman. Also on Monday the court ruled in favour of the retrial of Mariana Rarincas case. Rarinca is accused of having blackmailed High Court Supreme Judge Livia Stanciu. Rarinca originally received a suspended three-year prison sentence.



    The Court also decided that former anti-corruption prosecutor Emilian Eva remain in arrest pending his investigation. Emilian Eva is being charged with bribe taking in relation to the investigation of the illegal privatization case involving former MP Dan Voiculescu, who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.



    The anti-corruption campaign has been recently mirrored by the National Agency for Fiscal Administration. The Agency is currently examining the financial statements of 300 citizens, of whom 70% had unwarranted revenues of over 1 million lei. The investigation will take six or twelve months to complete, depending on the amount of information required. Meanwhile, the Prahova County Police Inspectorate has also fallen under scrutiny. The head of this institution is being investigated for money laundering.



    Similar investigations are being conducted at the School Inspectorates in Suceava, Bihor, Prahova and Braila counties, where a number of student transfers have been flagged as suspicious. Legal experts say the large number of corruption cases is due to various factors, such as external pressure and the willingness of some officials to see Romania move forward on the path of reforms.