Interior Minister-designate Marcel Vela said on Wednesday, at the 2019 activity review of the Romanian Police, that he has 'zero' tolerance for those who do not understand to do their duty or break the law, instead of enforcing it.
"I will always praise and reward those who show involvement and have excellent results, but above all, I will not close my eyes to the lack of involvement, to incompetence or, worse, when the police or other employees of the Interior Ministry move to the other side of the law. Even though there are exceptions, these cases have caused people to lose their trust in the Romanian Police," said Vela.
He showed that, in the past three months, the first "firm" measures to lead to normalcy have been taken.
"A prime example - the dismissal of the deputy chief of Olt Police Inspectorate for the way the Caracal case was handled. People expect us to do our duty every time and never have such tragedies again. We must recognize the chain of mistakes that occurred there, with disastrous consequences, we must take action against the guilty, as we have already begun to do," Marcel Vela said.
The minister said that there are provisions that make it difficult to investigate those responsible in such cases, and a priority is to change the limitation periods for certain deeds committed by police staff.
"The most important thing is, I think, to learn from mistakes and to make sure that they will never be repeated. The disciplinary investigation in the case of the police officers at Caracal is hampered by loopholes the police can use to exceed the limitation period and get rid of the sanction. So one of my measures will be to change these terms according to the model of those provided for the military staff," said Vela.