Conference notes IRRI-KIIB

Roundtable:  Brussels, March 14, 2006

"Turning the tide. Romania's anticorruption efforts in the view of
government and civil society"

with H.E. Ms. Monica Macovei, Romania's Minister of Justice.
Chaired by Claude Misson, Director General of IRRI-KIIB.

Summary; this is not an official record of proceedings and specific remarks are not necessarily attributable.

Romanian justice Minister Monica Macovei is in charge of the reform of the judicial system and the coordination of the fight against corruption. She does not belong to any political party, "a sign that the judicial system is depoliticised", according to her. Minister Macovei sent the message that good progress has been made during the last months.

The Minister concentrated first on recent developments in the judicial system. The completely non-independent and politically subordinated judiciary has been transformed into a fully independent system. Radical measures have been taken by the government.

In October 2004 and July 2005 a legal framework was adopted. A new concrete Strategy for reforming the judicial system covering the period 2005-2007 was adopted to avoid the safeguard clause the EU has imposed on Romania's accession process.  The government increased the budget for the Judiciary with about 15 million euro. For 2006, the budget will be 12% higher than that of last year.
A lot of areas of law did not exist in the beginning of the '90s. Macovei stressed that "we have reached the state where we have specialised sections on commercial law, bankruptcy, administration law etc." The code of Criminal Procedures dates from before 1990, but changes have been made. Some old codes have been amended.

Minister Macovei then moved to the subject of the effective independence of the judiciary.
       Judges became irremovable some 10 years ago. "There is a strong need for a predictable system and a unified jurisprudence". The reform is predestined to give all the Romanians trust in the judiciary system.
Judges have to be convinced to follow a specific jurisprudence.
    There is a huge development in the informatisation of all governmental institutions and in the judiciary. Courts and Prosecutors' Offices will be computerised by the end of June in order to streamline the judicial activity and to avoid contradictory judgements. A key element related to guaranteeing independence is the principle of random distribution of cases. An IT and software system specialised in performing random assignment have been implemented since March 2005.
    Furthermore, Macovei focused on the professional training of judges and prosecutors through the National Institute of Magistracy (NIM). This institution has two tasks: the first one is "to prepare young magistrates after their graduation. They have two years training before they become judges and prosecutors". The second task is "to train all the city judges and prosecutors on the new laws". She admitted that there is still a lot of work to do in this area.

Minister Macovei made clear that "reform is not over, neither perfect". She stressed that even when the strong pressure from public opinion will decrease, "she will continue to reform".

Preventing and combating corruption is another key objective to achieve.
    Minister Macovei mentioned the special Prosecutors' Office department set up in 2002, dealing with corruption cases. If there is a case under investigation now, there may be a conviction in May or at the end of the year. Quicker procedures for corruption cases will not be established, because of the need to respect the right of defence. All procedures have to be followed. Minister Macovei is convinced that this is a proof of political will and of an efficient working institution.
    She reminded that she changed the leadership of it and also the competences of this Anticorruption Prosecutors' Office in order to deal only with high level corruption. It is competent to/for:
a) investigate all public officials for corruption offences and offences related to corruption (economic crimes f.ex.)
b) investigate all crimes against European funds
c) jurisdiction for tax evasion over one million euro and other economic crimes over one million euro.

To conclude, Minister Macovei detailed some legislative measures for achieving the anticorruption objectives.
    In terms of preventing corruption very detailed declarations of wealth and interests were adopted last year! The Minister noted that this measure has already very positive results. "Declarations require detailed answers to many questions posed to all civil servants, parliamentarians, judges, prosecutors... Templates and declarations are published on the website of the anticorruption institution".
    A new law on granting of non-reimbursable contracts from public funds was adopted by the Parliament on December 2nd, 2005. The Ministry stopped the practise of state publicity in the media. Now, every state institution is obliged to publish on the website all contracts with the media.
    Other important measures in view to prevent corruption in the business environment are:
    "We finalised a draft law on transparency of funding political parties, an initiative of the Ministry of Justice. We have committed to stop the practice of rescheduling of or exemption from payment of debts to the state. We made tax evasion a criminal offence, because it wasn't before 2005", she said.
    Minister Macovei referred to measures eliminating immunities (of former ministers, public notaries, bailiffs and lawyers) that were obstacles to criminal investigation of high and medium level corruption.

Finally, she praised the peer review missions sent by the European Commission. Results were very good. The EC experts had a very positive influence on the reform of the Judiciary.
 

 

Further information:

-From Ministry of Justice - Anticorruption report: "Progress registered in the fight against corruption"

- Ministry of Justice: www.just.ro :
STRATEGII NATIONALE AFERENTE SISTEMULUI JUDICIAR:

-Government of Romania: http://www.gov.ro/engleza/index.php

-Mission of Romania to the EU: http://ue.mae.ro/

-Transparency International: Global Corruption Report 2006

News articles:
* Euractiv: EU- Romania relations with latest news

* Bucharest Daily News: Frattini: Romania's future is in parliamentarians'hands, 14 March 2006

* Bucharest Daily News: MPs only pretend to hear EU's calls against corruption, 13 March 2006

* Eubusiness: Romania passes urgent anti-corruption order, 2 March 2006

* EUobserver.com: Romania expects positive EU report on 2007 entry date Article require payment 21.02.2006
The law establishes a national anti-corruption department with competencies to probe politicians, and is seen by EU officials as an important sign that Romania is taking high-level corruption ...

* BBC News, Romania: Romania cleans up its act, Oana Lungescu, 4 Feb. 2006

* Bucharest Daily News: Justice Minister: "Romania should not come up with corruption cases only to please the EU", 20 Dec. 2005