Romanian PM appoints magistrate Robert Cazanciuc country's new Justice Minister

Robert Cazanciuc (in picture) is Romania's new Justice Minister. Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who has been acting as interim Justice Minister, proposed Cazanciuc to take over the Justice portfolio. Robert Cazanciuc, a magistrate currently working with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, will resign as a magistrate and prosecutor and shortly be sworn-in. “I think he will have a good relationship with the Supreme Court of Magistrates CSM, as well as with the European Commission,” said PM Ponta upon announcing the nomination.

End of March, former Justice Minister Mona Pivniceru left the ministry to become a Constitutional Court judge, and the PM took over her role as interim. While interim, he nominated the chief of the anti-corruption agency and chief prosecutors, which caused both praise and criticism. The selection process for chief prosecutors was not yet finalized. Robert Marius Cazanciuc, 42, was appointed Secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 21, 2012, after holding the same position before, between 2009 and 2012. He began his professional career in 1995, after graduating from the Law School of Bucharest University, and in 1996 he graduated from the National Institute for Magistrates. Until 1998 he worked as prosecutor, in charge of criminal investigations supervision, at the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Trial Court of Ilfov Agricultural District. He then moved to the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Supreme Court of Justice, where he worked for two years as a prosecutor with the Press Office. From 2000 to 2001 he worked as a spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office and brought out the first media-relations guidebook of the Public Ministry in Romania. After serving as Director General and then Under-Secretary of State within the Inspection Corps of the Prime Minister of Romania between 2001 and 2004, Cazanciuc was then appointed State Secretary with the Department for Programs Implementation and Structural Adjustment. He then went on to become Deputy Director General with the National Administration of Penitentiaries in 2005, and from 2008, Chief Prosecutor at the Press Office of the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Review and Justice. In 2009 he received a Master’s degree in Legal Certainty from the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu and also took several training courses in, and study visits to, France, Germany and the US. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs)