How the Justice Minister seriously compromised a criminal trial / Cătălin Predoiu is left with a „truly honorable” gesture

Of his own volition and without being questioned by journalists about the fate of a particular defendant convicted in the first instance, the Minister of Justice, Cătălin Predoiu, wanted to inform the public, in an interview broadcasted on Europa FM on Wednesday, that the husband of the former head of the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), Giorgiana Hosu, has since been acquitted. In case you didn’t know this, here’s his lawyer, the Minister of Justice himself, no less, informing you about this.

 

After delivering the news of the acquittal, I repeat, without having been asked about Mr. Hosu’s fate, the Minister of Justice concludes that the former head of DIICOT, Giorgiana Hosu, resigned „for a hypothesis that has not been realized”. The minister seems convinced of what he says. And what he is telling us, in clear language, is that Mrs. Hosu, also proposed by Mr. Predoiu as head of DIICOT in February 2020, with a negative opinion from the Supreme Council of Magistrates, resigned for nothing, because her husband, tried in a corruption case with a first instance conviction, has meanwhile been let off scot-free.

 

Giorgiana Hosu left the DIICOT in a gesture of honor, „truly of honor”, as Predoiu is keen to point out.

 

This is the beginning of a small disaster for Justice Minister Cătălin Predoiu. The first problem: Mr. Hosu’s appeal has not yet been heard. The case is due to be heard by the Court of Appeal on February 7. So there is no way he could have been acquitted since the case is still pending. Mr. Predoiu comes back the next day with an apology for the error, but he sinks even lower. The minister claims he had the information from „unofficial sources”, which he did not name.

 

What kind of sources does a justice minister have, and more importantly, why does he turn to them to pursue the fate of a criminal case? Why is he so interested in the outcome of the trial of the husband of former DIICOT chief Giorgiana Hosu? Why does he care so much whether a defendant is convicted or acquitted, be it the husband of the former head of the DIICOT? More on that later. In the meantime, things are getting even more complicated for the justice minister.

 

One of the judges in Mr. Hosu’s case is Sabina Daniela Adomniței, the wife of former liberal education minister Cristian Adomniței, sentenced in 2020 to three years and two months in prison in a corruption case. The decision is not final. Judge Adomniței has just taken a career leap on Thursday. The section for judges at the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM) has just delegated her to the position of president of the Criminal Section I of the Bucharest Court of Appeal (CAB), the day after the justice minister gloriously reports the acquittal.

 

Is she the „unofficial source” of Mr Predoiu, who is a full member of the CSM and a colleague of her husband on the party line? In a new attempt to exonerate himself, the justice minister continues his series of blunders on Friday. „It was my belief that that file was settled. I did not refer to the future with the intention of influencing the court in any way, but I referred to information that was in the past. That was my conviction from discussions outside the state framework, outside the official framework, which is why I also stated that it was from unofficial sources, legal circles that have no connection with state officials. It was effectively an error of judgment based on a memory lapse,” Predoiu told Prima TV’s Insider Politic.

 

So the justice minister wants to tell us that he was an eavesdropper, that he formed his conviction about the acquittal of the husband of the former head of DIICOT based on gossip possibly spread by former lawyer colleagues with whom he still spends time over a beer. Let’s say indeed it is as Mr Predoiu claims: he talked rubbish after misunderstanding some rubbish. Except that his statements about acquitting a defendant who will actually be tried in two weeks’ time have the most serious consequences: Mr. Hosu’s trial is totally compromised by the Justice Minister himself.

 

If he is acquitted, the public will rightly say that the Minister of Justice indicated the solution or knew about it before the verdict. A grave error, in both cases. The Minister must go. If Mr. Hosu is nevertheless convicted of corruption as he was convicted in the first instance, it means that the same Minister of Justice made a deeply flawed proposal to the head of the DIICOT, against the negative opinion of the CSM. What is worse, we will never know whether a potential conviction was justified or whether the judges, even with grounds for acquittal, will convict Mr. Hosu to avoid a public scandal. And in this situation, too Minister Predoiu must go.

He has seriously compromised public confidence in the judicial process, he undermined its independence and compromised a criminal trial in which a man’s fate is at stake.

 

Then, we will never know the real reasons why the CSM has just now promoted Judge Adomniței to her post. Was it really for merit or was it an advance reward to acquit the husband of the former head of DIICOT? What is extremely suspicious is the rapid promotion of Judge Adomniței, who in less than two years has moved from the Iasi Court to the Bucharest Court of Appeal, directly to the head of the criminal division. She was appointed to the panel trying Dan Hosu, including with the help of Minister Predoiu. 

 

Let us recall how Giorgiana Hosu was embraced and protected until the last moment by the head of state and publicly defended by the Minister of Justice himself. Predoiu had only words of praise for Giorgiana Hosu at the time of her resignation.

 

Whatever the decision delivered on 7 February, it is already deeply flawed by the justice minister’s blunders and the coincidence of Judge Adomniței’s promotion to a senior position the day after Predoiu’s statements on the acquittal of the former DIICOT chief’s husband, a case she is about to try. It all looks so bad that resignation on honor now seems the only decent way out for the justice minister. Sure, he can cling on to his post like Interior Minister Lucian Bode, but he’s adding another weight to the back of a PNL that’s increasingly hunched over by scandals.

 

I’m left with a small explanation. Why does the Minister of Justice care so much about the fate of a defendant like the husband of the former head of DIICOT? First of all, Cătălin Predoiu wants to defend his appointment three years ago as head of DIICOT and to say, as he has already suggested, that he did nothing wrong since Mrs. Hosu’s husband has been or will be acquitted.  „Could we say that Mrs. Hosu has resigned in honor, truly in honor, for a hypothesis that has not been realized?” asked Cătălin Predoiu during the interview.

 

Secondly, the justice minister suggests that all those who urged Mrs. Hosu to resign two years ago, led by G4Media, were blatantly wrong. Personally, I have persistently asked the head of state in several press conferences at the Cotroceni in 2020, a few months after her appointment, why he does not dismiss Mrs. Hosu, head of the anti-mafia prosecutor’s office, since she lives in the same house with a defendant in a corruption case? The argument was that Mr. Hosu risked criminal conviction, which he did, casting a shameful stain on criminal justice in Romania. Who has ever heard of a chief prosecutor with a convicted criminal husband? Of course, no one is responsible for the actions of another, but here we are talking again about public confidence in the system. President Iohannis avoided clear answers and Mrs. Hosu resigned only in September 2020, after her husband was convicted in the first instance.

 

In conclusion, the Minister of Justice, Cătălin Predoiu, out of a desire to defend an uninspired proposal, to protect Klaus Iohannis for appointing and keeping her for months against the evidence and to please even the supporters of Mrs. Hosu in the system, has just dug his own grave. The great rehabilitation operation has failed miserably. Now, as he launches the procedure for appointing new chief prosecutors, Predoiu claims to have committed „an error of judgment based on a memory lapse” by announcing a high-profile false acquittal.

 

We will never know if he said something stupid with serious consequences or if his mouth got the better of him. Either way, it would be helpful if the new chief prosecutors were appointed by someone else. This Minister of Justice has lost all credibility. He is no longer useful to anyone, let alone to justice.

Traducere (Ovidiu Harfas)