European chief prosecutor Kovesi: ECHR ruling cannot remain without effect;CCR should rule on principles

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Published: 05/05/2020 19:39

Sursa foto: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea

European prosecutor-in-chief Laura Codruta Kovesi has stated on Tuesday that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling regarding her removal from the office of prosecutor-in-chief of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) should not remain without effect, adding that the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) should rule "on principles" and not regarding a person.

"This decision cannot remain without effect, something must happen, the Romanian state must take some measures so that such situations do not happen again. First of all, the Constitutional Court should never again rule on a person, as it did in my case, even twice, the Constitutional Court should rule on principles and other matters. And secondly, a prosecutor in office who is removed from office, a judge or any other person, a civil servant, as the European Court uses in its reasoning, should have the possibility to appear before a panel of judges. This is what the ECHR is actually reproaching, including to the Constitutional Court, for depriving me of the opportunity to appear before a panel of judges, before a panel of independent judges to decide whether this revocation is legal or not, whether it is appropriate or not, whether the legal requirements are met or not," Kovesi told Europa FM radio station.

Laura-Codruta Kovesi won on Tuesday at the European Court of Human Rights the trial by which she challenged the decision that had her removed from the office of prosecutor-in-chief of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), a press release of the institution based in Strasbourg informs.

According to the ECHR, Romania violated Kovesi's rights by removing her from office before the end of her term.

According to the ECHR ruling, there had been no way for the applicant to bring a claim in court against her dismissal as such proceedings would only have been able to examine the formal aspects of the presidential decree for her removal and not her substantive argument that she had been incorrectly removed for criticising the legislative changes in corruption law.

Furthermore, the ECHR also found that her right to freedom of expression had been violated because she had been dismissed for those criticisms, which she had made in the exercise of her duties on a matter of great public interest.

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