Radio România Internațional

Tag: prosecution

  • Changes in Parliament’s Rules of Procedure

    Changes in Parliament’s Rules of Procedure

    The members of Romania’s Parliament have finally made a first, tentative step towards improving their public image. They changed the institution’s Rules of Procedure, to the effect that the prosecution, detention or pre-trial arrest of a Deputy or Senator may be approved on the vote of the majority of MPs attending the meeting in which the prosecutors’ request is discussed. This change brings Parliament’s Rules of Procedure in line with the Constitution, as the Constitutional Court had instructed. Such a measure was long due, says Deputy Mircea Toader, from the Liberal Opposition:



    “We are merely adapting our rules to what should have been done a long time ago, so as not to make the Parliament of Romania a shield for some who believe themselves to be above the law. For some of them, the prosecutors’ requests were approved on a simple majority vote, while for others on the majority of the total number of Senators.”



    In the future, such procedural incongruities will no longer be possible. Parliamentary practice has recently faced such a situation, in the case of Senator Dan Sova, for whom the Anti-Corruption Directorate had requested approval of pre-trial custody arrest, for charges of accessory to abuse of office. Most of the Senators attending the meeting voted in favour of the arrest, but the Senate leaders decided to dismiss the request because it was not approved by the majority of the total number of Senators. In the Chamber of Deputies, similar requests had been approved on simple majority voting, so this was a case of discrimination between the two Chambers. Criticised for the decision, the Senate Speaker Calin Popescu-Tariceanu said, in his defence, that he complied with the Rules of Procedure. He is now voicing satisfaction with the recent change that eliminates all ambiguities and proves that MPs are not above the law. Calin Popescu-Tariceanu:



    “Parliament is not trying, in any form, under the cover of provisions that come against the Constitution, to give more protection to its members than the one given to ordinary citizens. We are all equal before the law and we choose to make these changes in order to clarify the problem and leave no more room for speculations.”



    The abuse of immunity that some MPs resort to in dismissing the requests of anti-corruption prosecutors without good grounds has undermined the credibility and popularity of Parliament, making it the favourite target of criticism coming from the European experts that assess the judicial reform and the anti-corruption efforts in Romania. President Klaus Iohannis, a resolute critic of the attempts to give super-immunity to MPs, has recently voiced his disappointment with having not yet managed to convince them to take the path of integrity and respect for justice.

  • High-profile corruption cases in Romania

    High-profile corruption cases in Romania

    Following what is now a classic scenario, a new chapter of the Romanian anti-corruption campaign was written on Tuesday. At the end of an eight-year trial, several heavyweights of the Romanian political, economic and media scene were put behind bars, following a final ruling from the Bucharest Court of Appeal. Eight people were sent to prison and four others received suspended sentences.



    One of them is the former Liberal senator, Sorin Rosca Stanescu, over his involvement in the Rompetrol case. His conviction cost him his MP seat and his National Liberal Party membership. One of the most influential journalists in post-communist Romania, an investigative journalist and later editor-in chief, Rosca Stanescu has been, in keeping with his right-wing values, a staunch supporter of capitalism, anti-communism and moderate nationalism. However, his collaboration with the former political police, the Securitate, and his involvement in media campaigns suspected of being used as a blackmail tool, have won him a doubtful reputation. He is now serving a 26-month prison sentence for using confidential information and setting up an organised crime group.



    A former Liberal minister in the 1990s and later a member of the small Conservative Party, Sorin Pantis has received 2 years and 8 months in prison for complicity to market manipulation. He is already serving time in prison for his involvement in another corruption case.



    The former deputy chairman of Rompetrol Holland, Alexandru Bucsa, received by far the toughest sentence — six years behind bars for complicity to embezzlement and money laundering.



    The mastermind of the whole scheme, the famous businessman Dinu Patriciu died in August in a London hospital. In his case, prosecutors had asked for 20-year prison sentence. One of the richest people in Romania, Patriciu was the main sponsor of the National Liberal Party and was believed to have dictated some of the party’s most important decisions. Styling himself as a generous philanthropist, he appears nevertheless to have always used somebody else’s money. According to anti-corruption prosecutors, with the complicity of other people indicted in the case, Patriciu laid his hands on around 85 million dollars between 1999 and 2001, money which should have gone to the state budget.



    Prosecutors also say that in 2004 he manipulated the trading of shares on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Following the Court’s ruling, Rompetrol, one of Romania’s most important hydrocarbon companies, which was held at the time by Dinu Patriciu, has to give back to the Romanian state tens of millions of dollars.



    In another case related to the local oil industry, the Petrotel oil refinery in Ploiesti, southern Romania, owned by the Russian giant Lukoil, had its accounts blocked for a few days, following its involvement in a fiscal evasion and money-laundering case, which allegedly cost the state budget 230 million euros. Investigations in this case are under way.