The chief prosecutor of the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA), Laura Codruta Kovesi has sent on Monday a letter to the inquiry parliamentary committee on 2009 presidential elections, announcing she will not come for hearings at Monday’s sitting. This is the third time Kovesi refuses to attend the hearings.
The committee chairwoman, SocDem Oana Florea stated that the DNA chief prosecutor sent a letter which is 90 percent identical to the previous letter. She also announced the committee would notify the Justice Ministry over Kovesi’s denial.
Kovesi says in the letter that she has taken note of the committee’s goals, meaning “to check the legal provisions on the 2009 presidential elections, to determine the involvement of some persons or institutions in the electoral process or in political decisions that get beyond the legal responsibilities of those institutions”, while informing in the end that she doesn’t have information about the events investigated by the inquiry committee.
“Considering I don’t know anything and I don’t have any evidence related to the circumstances and causes that prompted to the events investigated here by the Committee, I will not come to the inquiry committee’s sitting on Monday, July 10, 2017,” says Kovesi’s letter.
In retort, the parliamentary inquiry committee has approved by six votes to send Kovesi an address asking her if she was present at Gabriel Oprea’s house on the elections’ night in 2009, after a proposal made by Liberal Daniel Fenechiu.
At the same time, the members of the committee Okayed to notify Justice minister Tudorel Toader to order some actions after the DNA chief prosecutor’s denial to come to the inquiry commitee, despite the Constitutional Court’s ruling, which says officials who are requested for hearings in Parliament must come. The decision passed by seven votes to three.
Last week, the parliamentary committee probing into the presidential elections in 2009 has sent a new invitation to the anti-corruption chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi to come for hearings following the Constitutional Court’s ruling saying the officials who are requested to come for hearings in the parliamentary inquiry committees are compelled to come.
The committee’s chairwoman, PSD deputy Oana Florea said that the committee would file a complaint to the Justice Ministry or a criminal complaint if Kovesi declined this invitation, too.
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