Romania’s chief anti-graft prosecutor: Constitutional Court ruling stopped important investigations

A decision of Romania’s Constitutional Court (CCR) related to the abuse of office offense prevents the recovery of damages worth EUR 188 million in cases the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) investigated this year, says DNA chief prosecutor Laura Codruţa Kovesi. The Constitutional Court decided in June 2016 that abuse of office was too widely defined in the Criminal Code and suggested that the definition be changed. Before this decision, abuse of office was defined as “the deed of a public servant who, when undertaking his work duties, does not fulfill an act or fulfills it in a deficient manner” and causes damages. The Court recommended that the phrasing “in a deficient manner” be replaced with “by breaking the law,” Mediafax reported. When motivating its decision, the Court explained that “not fulfilling or fulfilling in a deficient manner an act needs to be analyzed only in relation to work duties specifically regulated by the primary legislation,” according to Cursdeguvernmare.ro. The primary legislation refers to laws issued by the Parliament and to ordinances issued by the Government. The chief DNA prosecutor said 245 cases were closed this year, and the associated damages amounting to EUR 188 million cannot be recovered as the facts can no longer be investigated. Last year, the DNA seized EUR 263 million in abuse of office cases, she added. Kovesi said that the abuse of office offense is “unfortunately, a repetitive one, which is generalized when we are talking about public acquisitions, and which unfortunately the DNA will not be able to investigate in the future because of this CCR decision.” The chief DNA prosecutor argued that even bigger consequences can arise if further changes to the abuse of office offense are made. “If only a CCR decision can lead to these consequences, what can happen if we change the public servant definition, if we set a threshold for abuse of office, or if we make other changes in the way abuse of office or bribery are defined?,” Kovesi said. The abuse of office offense has been a hot topic in Romania throughout the year. It started at the beginning of 2017, when the repealed emergency ordinance OUG 13 proposed a RON 200,000 limit under which abuse of office would not be a criminal offense. Setting such a limit means that public officials who abuse the powers given by their positions but don’t cause damages over this limit would not face criminal charges anymore. The ordinance was repealed after massive street protests but the Parliament took on the task of changing the Criminal Code. In June, the Constitutional Court said