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Senate Chairman Calin Popescu-Tariceanu says the archives of the Internal Anti-Corruption Protection Service (SIPA) should be destroyed to eliminate what he calls "a blackmail instrument" against active judges and prosecutors.
"In my opinion, the SIPA archives should be destroyed, purely and simply, so that there will no longer be a blackmail instrument against those who are probably still working as judges or prosecutors. Some of them have likely retired since the archives started, we do not know, but the others, still actively employed, should be spared this looming threat because I do not find it normal for private life details to be used against them, so that their judgement may be distorted by the fear of such disclosures," Tariceanu told B1TV private broadcaster on Wednesday.
He added that details from the private lives of law professionals included in the documents in the SIPA archives could be used for blackmailing.
"What do we learn from how the SIPA archives came into the public attention? That instead of the service taking care of protection of justice professionals against corruption attempts, unsound ties among judges, prosecutors, defendants and convicts, information about many things, including private life details, were gathered in dossiers on the justice professionals - judges and possibly prosecutors - details that can always be used for some nice blackmailing. That would not be anything original in Romania either. And I believe that for this reason, the archives should not be handed over, lest we finds some day that the archives got broken into, improperly used or I do not know what," reads the transcript of Tariceanu's statements on the show published on his Facebook page.
