General Prosecutor's Office: GRECO Report confirms warnings of Public Ministry related to modifications on justice laws

The Public Ministry claims the GRECO Report conforms its repeated warnings related to the vulnerabilities that the adoption by Parliament of the modifications on justice laws would mean to the judiciary.

"After mass-media representatives asked for the Ministry's viewpoint related to the GRECO Report, which was made public today, the information and public relations office of this Ministry specified the following: The Report of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) confirms the repeated warnings of the Public Ministry in relation to the vulnerabilities that will be caused to the judiciary and the rule of law in Romania in case Parliament adopts the modifications brought to the justice laws," reads a release of the General Prosecutor's Office on Wednesday sent to AGERPRES.

The Group of States against Corruption of the Council of Europe (GRECO) claimed in a report released on Wednesday that it was deeply concerned with certain aspects of the law regarding the status of judges and prosecutors, of the law regarding the organization of the judiciary and the law regarding the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM) adopted recently by the Romanian Parliament, and also with the draft amendments to be brought to the criminal legislation, reads a press release of the Council of Europe.

GRECO drafted the report based on a decision taken at the plenary sitting of December 2017 regarding the carrying out of an urgent extraordinary assessment of the reforms in the judiciary system of Romania, considering that they could involve serious breaches of anti-corruption standards.

The Report notes that the amendments to the three laws on the judiciary adopted by Parliament in December 2017 do not include one of the most controversial proposals presented initially in the summer of last year. Still, GRECO is concerned with their potential impact, among which the impact on the structure of the personnel in courts and prosecutor's offices. Despite the importance and amplitude of these reforms, their impact was not adequately estimated, with the legislative process also being questionable.

Moreover, GRECO reiterated its recommendation that the procedure of appointment and removal for most prosecutor offices, other than the chief-prosecutor office, according to the article 54 of the Law No. 303/2004, be a transparent process, based on objective criteria, and that the CSM be given a stronger role in this procedure.

On the other hand, GRECO criticizes also draft amendments to be brought to the criminal laws that, if adopted, would obviously contradict some of the international commitments made by Romania, among which the Criminal Convention on corruption.

Moreover, the report criticizes a series of draft laws initiated in the Senate on December 21, 2017 that would significantly weaken the incrimination of various corruption-related crimes in the Criminal Code, for instance bribery and influence peddling wouldn't apply to the elected officials, and in what abuse of office is concerned, the modifications would completely decriminalize all crimes committed where damages worth less than 200,000 euro.