by Andreea Marinas
After witnessing lately to all sorts of moves, seen as key-events, on the ‘fight against corruption’ stage, with Justice Minister Tudorel Toader’s call to dismiss the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) chief Laura Codruta Kövesi with an well-backed 36-page report, now the justice sector in our country seems to be in freefall, drawing all eyes on us.
While all looks like a conspiracy against the corruption watchdog, out of which Kövesi tries to sulk her way by bringing into spotlight the great number of achievements her institution managed to sign over the years, everything is falling apart beginning with the image of the Minister of Justice, quite damaged after both interior and external critics, and ending with the position of DNA chief who is forced to keep on partaking this relentless scandal.
The ultimate update on the matter informs how Romania’s general prosecutor Augustin Lazar states that the Justice Minister did not respect CSM interior rules regarding Kövesi’s dismissal procedure.
All these with accuses running wild that Toader’s students are performing behind the others and that his wife is the only participant in the exam to become chief of department in the clinic she activates as physician. Cherry on top or to make the utmost of the case file, Laura Codruta Kövesi has to do with corruption acts in Iasi regarding several underpriced plots there.
Meanwhile, German media is far from standing on the fence, penciling that “Romania’s fighter against corruption should fall. She does her job too well. (…) She is a hated enemy of the political class, but the people love her for her fearlessness, her down-to-earth worldliness, which gives many Romanians the hope that they will not be pushed off the track that leads to Europe” (Süeddeutsche Zeitung).
As for the Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader, he was being painted as “a political commissar from the Stalinist era”. Nothing about his reasons though. Reasons which, PM Viorica Dancila found to be pertinent enough.
Toader presented a 36-page report to the media about DNA activities, led by Laura Codruta Kovesi, whom he accused of acting beyond her responsibilities and not respecting the authority of the parliament. He also accused Kövesi of putting strains in releasing the truth and in clarifying public interest matters, by refusing to appear before a parliament committee investigating irregularities during the 2009 presidential election. Toader accused Kövesi of behaving in an authoritarian and discretionary way, nothing news in fact as she has been critised for this even by her own staff.
In full crisis, the EU is sending us peace pigeons and we should be feeling good: we are not being forgotten nor left aside.
“Whether we are in government or in opposition, we all lose. I am deeply convinced that the people of Romania, same as the people of the Netherlands and other countries, want politicians to talk about jobs, social security, education, health care, and not about justice reform, especially if they feel that the reform is made for your own good, not for the good of society,” said Frans Timmermans, Vice-President of the European Commission, while in Bucharest last week.
An idealistic goal so hard to reach when all the above-mentioned are sickened by corruption at all levels, a reality that’s making Romanians to hold fire even against one another. Little to low interference is not useful either for a country outpouring trouble, pain, instability most visible in politics for the ones looking at us, intolerance and lack of confidence.