A perfect storm moment: the laws of justice, the

criminal codes and the idea of anticorruption

In the economy, we have the concept of a "perfect storm" when all the important
elements that can influence the situation of a country in the wrong act and produce
the maximum possible evil. Such a conjuncture is now taking place around us
around justice, and it is to lose all the parties involved

If we turn a bit in time, we see that the spring of 2016 was the moment when the practical impetus of the
anti-corruption struggle also found a theoretical expression: it was EGO 18, which amended and
supplemented consistently (more than 150 provisions) the Criminal Code , The Code of Criminal
Procedure and the Law 304 on Judicial Organization. The Ordinance was motivated by the intention of
the Minister of Justice, Raluca Pruna, to agree the CP and CPC with some European directives and with
the decisions of the CCR that occurred in the previous two years, since the new Criminal Code came into
force. This motivation has also explained the rapid changeover through the GEO. In reality, however, part
of the changes did not refer to the decisions of the RACs or to the European directives, but they
expressed the dominant philosophy of the Romanian state regarding the justice system, with the return to
a repressive, force-handed approach with significant increases in penalties for certain offenses and with
additional powers for prosecutors.

That's why the ordinance was criticized in its day. APADOR-CH disapproves, for example, the
prosecutor's empowerment to ask the financial data of a person directly from the banks, without the
court's approval, or the abrogation of the provision by which the defendant is immediately informed after
the arrest of the reasons for the arrest. They also objected to law professors such as Valerian Ciocla, who
noted the fact that where the criminal deeds have produced particularly serious consequences, the
special limits of the penalties provided by the law increase by half, which in case of some offenses skilled
theft or robbery, maximum punishments to 15-18 years of imprisonment, more than just a crime of death-
causing injury. As for the reason why the new Criminal Code reduced the penalty limits - a reduction that
GEO 18 subsequently canceled systematically - prosecutor Irina Kuglay (the one we remember as
representative of the General Prosecutor's Office at a debate on the EGO 14 / 2017 where he was given
out by Şerban Nicolae) has shown in 2014, explaining the spirit of the new Criminal Code, that not the
exaggerated increase of punishment limits is the solution to fight crime, because when criminality
increases or falls, the cause is not the punishment too little, but either the inefficiency of the prosecution
bodies or the lengthy process.

I have mentioned much more about the EGO 18 because objections such as the above and still reminded
a few: not part of the political turmoil, the discussions of the specialists do not raise interest among the
public, for which the only important thing is that the criminals in the society are condemned and to punish
his punishment. As this sometimes happens surprisingly hard, be it the files of some media rapists or
politicians, exasperation reactions and the almost automatic idea that the solution would be tightening
punishments - an idea always ready to be exploited by bloody politicians more despicable or more
populist, ranging from Raluca Pruna to the 18th-18th anniversary, and to former Prime Minister Mihai
Tudose, who found that the pedophile in the police should be subjected to the death penalty, and even
congratulations on having the courage to support such a thing in an EU that has long understood that it
has to give up the death penalty.
That is how, in the field of justice and the reform of its laws, Romania seems to live a day of unpredictable
mole: what seemed good earned in 2009, when the new Criminal Code was drafted, or in 2014, when it
came into force, was forgotten in 2016, and remains forgotten now, and those who try to put the issue
back in correct terms fail to discredit those terms simply because of their lack of credibility and
intelligence. It was first the case with the laws of justice: and the opposition and the president agreed that
laws dating back to 2004 can not be regarded as holy relics and that they undergo improvements, but the
vengeful anger with which PSD people have countered numerous provisions considering them exclusively
from the perspective of the politician targeted by the DNA generated an equally furious reaction from the
prosecutor's offices, who, with street support, managed to present the situation in such a way that the
modification of the laws of justice would seem to be an act of dictatorship that would lead to the removal
of Romania from the EU. Not one of them won: Romania lost a year of economic reform, the PSD lost the
opportunity to overcome the role of eternal corrupt lawyer, justice lost the opportunity to update its
legislation, and civil society almost lost its ability to judge from a civilian angle (and not criminal, as
potential reasons of arrest and file) the actions of state institutions and sometimes even of civilian peers.

The same thing is to be done now with the criminal and criminal codes, which must include until April not
only the unresolved RCC decisions, but also the 2016 EU directive on the presumption of innocence,
which opens the possibility that if the debate to resolve the issue of an emergency ordinance again, as in
2016. Already today, street protests begin on criminal codes, announcing the next reason for disputes,
once the laws of justice have already begun to be upheld by the CCR appeals are due to be discussed on
February 13). This new inflammation is not happening because the solution to a GEO for criminal codes
is illegal, or because the European directive is something that deserves to be combated, but because
there is already the precedent, of a stupid and bizarre, of the CP and CPP Cătălin Rădulescu and signed
by 40 PSD MPs, through which the local parliamentarians and elected representatives can no longer be
investigated for the crimes stipulated in the CP, because they are no longer considered civil servants; the
same projects abrogate the provision in the CP that punishes abusive use of the function for sexual
purposes.

What I said above about the discrediting of good principles is also true here: the explanatory statement of
one of the initiatives rightly shows that Romania has the worst sanctioning regime in the EU, considering
that the average of the punishments is 7 years, while in the EU it is only 1 year. However, with regard to
the content of the proposals, to the obtuse of the arguments that Radulescu publicly commented on, and
to the ridiculousness that the rest of the signatories covered when trying to delimit themselves from them
and claiming that they had never been agree with it and have signed by mistake (to be remembered that
there is also the current minister Natalia Intotero, and the potential presidential candidate Liviu
Pleşoianu), it is hard to tell the public to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong and to
support ever initiatives that would invoke too high penalties in the CP. And it is hard to claim a politician or
a specialist to dare to expose to public fury if he dares to explain that Romania should aim for a modern
criminal vision, where the emphasis is no longer on sentences of decades of imprisonment, but on
methods of executing punishments that would favor reintegration into society and a decrease in the rate
of recidivism.

And this anger has grown, not only because of the scandals of justice laws and criminal codes, but also
because of the newest element of the "perfect storm": disappointment with the balance sheet of the anti-
corruption fight, highlighted by the strange failure of the Microsoft file more precisely the part of the file
with PSD ministers) and the ease with which the DNA sent the failure by blaming the case
prosecutor. Some of the constant advocates of the anti-corruption struggle, civil society representatives,
have begun to wonder whether exclusive care to protect DNA from attacks and the notion that there is
never time to criticize or question the performance of the institution for fear of it did not seem like you
were corrupt, they were actually detrimental and ill-treated. As she said on Facebook Ana Otilia Nuţu,
Expert Forum analyst: "Unfortunately, the time has never been. If it was a lucid criticism over time, with
the Ponta-Blair, Grebla, Georgescu, Niţu, Oltean, Ruşanu, Oprescu, the unconstitutional dossier on the
EGO13, the 2014 election file, and maybe it could not be reached here.

Such a failure could be used constructively to move to an adult phase of discussion, where slogans and
black-and-white thinking begin to disappear, as well as the mechanical demonization of any idea of
amending any law on justice . There is still a chance for civilized debate and there are various proposals
to adapt the European directive - it is worthwhile studying, for example, the text of the Code of Criminal
Procedure published by the National Union of Bar Associations with the amendments tabled by PSD-
ALDE, UDMR, Bucharest Bar and PNL senators Alina Gorghiu and Daniel Fenechiu. Just enough people
to want to do constructive. Otherwise, the perfect storm will take effect, disgusting everyone and the ideal
of anti-corruption, and hoping that the efficiency of justice could ever be improved. And only pictures of
Dragnea and Tariceanu's dummies will be left in the eve, agitated at protests in Victory Square - childish
fantasies that consumed the energy of the gurus just as Băsescu's feet in Victoria Square or Vadim's
stadiums filled with corrupts brought to be executed in the sight of the people.