Romania’s Justice Ministry plans evaluation of Anticorruption Directorate and Public Ministry activity

Romania’s Justice Minister Tudorel Toader said he would have talks in the coming days with the country’s general prosecutor and the head of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) on the investigation DNA initiated on the Government’s decision to adopt the emergency ordinance 13 (OUG13). He also said the ministry wanted to start an evaluation of the activity of the Public Ministry and of the DNA. The now revoked OUG13 aimed to change the Criminal Code, by decriminalizing or and reducing the criminal punishments for corruption offences such as abuse of office, conflict of interest, and negligence at work. Its adoption at the end of January triggered the largest street protests Romania has seen in 25 years, still ongoing. In early-February, DNA started looking into how the Government drafted and adopted the controversial emergency ordinance. After several hearings, DNA decided to pass the case to the General Prosecutor’s Office, which was to continue the investigation on charges of favoring the offender, intellectual fraud, submitting inaccurate data to the Parliament or the Romanian President on the work of the Government or a Ministry, and hiding or destroying documents or evidence. However, Romania’s Constitutional Court decided at the end of February that there was a legal conflict between the Government and the DNA on the investigation started on the OUG13. The Constitutional Court argued that by investigating how the bill was adopted, the DNA disrupted the normal functioning of the Government and the relationships that must exist between the judicial, executive and legislative. The Justice Minister, who made the statements in a TV show at Antena 3, also implied that he did not exclude the possibility that the general prosecutor Augustin Lazar and the DNA head Codruta Kovesi would resign. “Of course, I do not exclude the possibility that, in the absence of a procedure I trigger, they start an inner, individual initiative concerning the way they positioned themselves, I repeat, to legal and constitutional stipulations, and even to debates in the public sphere, in a period so sensitive, when people have these particular feelings, because they have particular expectations, in 2017,” minister Toader said on Sunday, quoted by Hotnews.ro. However, the minister said on Monday that he did not suggest that the two should resign. “I did not suggest that they should [resign]. I said and I asked that no speculations are made on the issue, and I invoked an institution in the Labor Code. Anyone can resign, nobody is compelled to work against their will. I didn’t say that they have to, I invoked an institution in the Labor Law,” Toader said, quoted by