The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg rejected on Thursday, December 11, the complaint made by former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase against the Romanian state. Nastase had filed this case two years ago, after he was convicted to two years in jail for corruption crimes.

“The case concerned the conviction of Adrian Nastase, former Prime Minister and former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Romania, by the High Court of Cassation and Justice, for using his influence as chairman of a political party in order to obtain financing for his 2004 election campaign. The Court found that Mr Nastase’s complaints were manifestly ill-founded or incompatible with the Convention, or to be rejected for failure to exhaust domestic remedies,” reads the court’s decision, which can be found here.

In his application to the court, Adrian Nastase claimed that his criminal conviction, following proceedings that he considered unfair, his prison sentence and the consequences from which he claimed to have suffered, namely his inability to lead a normal family life and the loss of his political and professional career, together with the media coverage of his case, had constituted humiliating treatment, had caused him serious psychological distress and had resulted in his attempting to commit suicide.

Nastase also complained that he had not been given a hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law, on the ground that one of the judges of the first-instance trial court had not been appointed as judge by decree of the President of Romania. He alleged that such a practice undermined the legality of the court.

He also said that he was not able to have all the prosecution witnesses examined and that he had been obliged to justify his requests for evidence, whereas the public prosecutor had not had to provide such justification. Another allegation was that the application of this change was illegal and arbitrary.

Adrian Nastase was convicted in June 2012 to two years in prison, in the “Trofeul Calitatii” (Quality Trophy) case, for receiving illegal funding for his 2004 election campaign. He executed 8 months of his sentence.

In January 2014, Nastase was again convicted to four years in jail in another corruption case. He was released on parole, in August 2014.

editor@romania-insider.com