Romanian justice minister provokes US Ambassador before meeting

Romanian justice minister Tudorel Toader made a series of ironic remarks before his meeting today with US ambassador Hans Klemm. Last week, the US Embassy expressed their concern with the justice minister’s proposals for changing the justice laws, which include a new process for naming top prosecutors and getting the Judicial Inspection under the ministry’s control. “Maybe he is worried that in the project for changing the justice laws I didn’t follow the most democratic system in the US, where the general prosecutor is appointed by the Senate. I’m thinking of also proposing that the general prosecutors in appointed by the Senate so we can strive to the same democracy standard,” the minister said in a TV show at Antena 3 news station, reports local Mediafax. Last week, Tudorel Toader proposed that the President should be removed from the process of naming the general prosecutor and the chief prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) and the Anti-Organized Crime Directorate (DIICOT). His proposals for changing the justice laws were criticized by prosecutors and the President and again raised concerns that the Government was trying to get more control over the justice system and the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) in particular. editor@romania-insider.com