





EC report on Romania Justice threatens safeguarding clause activation
The main issues in the report are:
- The anti-graft campaign: one of the four benchmarks established by the EC referred to Romania continuing to conduct professional and impartial investigations in high-level corruption cases. The report shows that the investigations regressed, many files being returned by courts to the prosecutors, in order to complete the evidence trail. Others were returned due to non-Constitutional exception clauses issued by the Constitutional Court and even more files were blocked by procedure vices invoked by lawyers and accepted in the High court of Causation and Justice (ICCJ). EC noted that none of the high-level corruption cases are currently in court.
The blockage of the files referring to eight former and in office ministers, the still not opened National Integrity Agency (an institution that should be already functioning and enabled to verify the wealth of dignitaries), the modifications of the Criminal Law, which may have a huge negative impact on the efficiency of all investigations - all are major issues that may trigger the safeguarding clause activation. Commissioners will discuss the preliminary report this week and, in case there are no objections, it will be published on Friday.
Still, objections are expected from the Bulgarian and the Romanian representatives.