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The National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) announced on Thursday that it sent an address to the Financial Times with a view to rectifying some "unreal information" that Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader would have sent in a letter to the publication, informs a DNA press release.
"With reference to the letter sent by the Minister of Justice of Romania, Tudorel Toader, reproduced by the publication you are representing in the March 7 edition, the Office of Information and Public Relations of the National Anticorruption Directorate is empowered to specify the following: Considering that the data on which the Minister of Justice's argument is based are not real, which is likely to affect the truth value of the conclusion of the matters presented about DNA activity, for the correct information of public opinion, we present the actual data, resulting from the official statistics, on the investigations that concern magistrates, most of these investigations being opened following complaints / denunciations received from persons dissatisfied with the solutions in civil or criminal cases in which those persons were involved," the DNA press release states.
For example, the anti-corruption prosecutors show, to maintain that DNA has exerted a form of pressure on magistrates judging in criminal cases, Mr. Minister points out that the newly formed magistrates' section - the Judiciary Crime Investigation Section - took over 1,422 files from DNA, and almost 70 percent were put together ex officio, not as a result of any complaint or denunciation.
"In fact, when it began its activity, the said Section took over from DNA a total of 275 files in the works, of which 34 ex officio complaints, which means 12 percent," DNA adds.
"Another example refers to the Minister of Justice's statement that during the mandate of Laura Kovesi [former prosecutor-in-chief, ed.n.], DNA opened investigations on 3,420 judges and prosecutors, more than half of the total number of magistrates in Romania. In fact, the total number of investigations regarding the magistrates registered with DNA during the period 01.01.2014 - 30.07.2018 (4 years and 7 months) was 2,396, of which, during the same period, 1,922 were classified files because the complaints were found to be groundless," DNA further maintains in the letter sent to the newspaper.
DNA also states that of these cases, only 10.4 percent were ex officio, and it therefore appears that most of the files were opened following complaints by individuals or legal persons. Moreover, 521 complaints do not include the name of the magistrate or the institution to which he/she belongs.
The anti-corruption prosecutors also state that, according to the Romanian legislation, there is the obligation that any notification (complaint, denunciation) received by the Prosecutors' Offices, which meets the conditions of form, be registered as a criminal case.
