Kovesi’s investigation: another step towards the Republic of Thugs

Laura Codruţa Kovesi’s investigation confirms all the fears expressed last year by the Venice Commission, the GRECO report and the CVM warnings, and the alarm signals rang by the magistrates in connection with the special section for the investigation of magistrates. Only three months after its establishment (October 2018), the section has executed its first political command, with the obvious aim of blocking Laura Codruţa Kovesi’s access to the leadership of the European Prosecutor’s Office.

The ruling coalition is sparing no effort in its attempt to remove the candidacy of the former DNA head: official letters sent to Brussels by Justice Minister Tudorel Toader, and false information spread in the European Parliament by PSD MEPs close to power, in short, through an intense anti-Kovesi lobby campaign.

The international press has taken note of the powers that be position in Bucharest, which is, paradoxically, trying to block Romania’s very candidate. For external analysts, the fact that a government accused of defending corruption, destroying justice and criminal law, is attacking Kovesi, is further proof that this is the right person for the new institution with an important stake for the EU: The European Prosecutor’s Office will deal with the investigation of frauds involving European funds .

Those who have already announced their support for Kovesi have invoked the effectiveness and results of the former DNA chief. Those who attack her in Brussels want to prove that she has never acted as an independent prosecutor, but rather she has been a kind of secret service secretary in Romania, and under her leadership there have been abusive inquiries. This is the essence of Tudorel Toader’s letter. The Minister of Justice insisted on the protocols signed with SRI, and Kovesi is now being dragged by Ghiţă into a business that finally leads to special operations as well.

In a beautiful synchronization between politicians and government, the special section used the charges concerning the fugitive Sebastian Ghiţă to turn the former head of DNA into a person of interest, a quality that could compromise the former DNA chief’s chances to head the European Prosecutor’s Office. The coincidence is too high, the coordination between the PSD and the government is too obvious.

„I have never been an independent prosecutor, because I worked in this system that operates under hierarchical control,” said Adina Florea during the CSM hearings undertook for filling the leadership position for the head of the special section. As far as Adina Florea is concerned, her boss is Tudorel Toader, who has also explained to magistrates that prosecutors are part of the executive, as law enforcement officers.

In his turn, the former communist propagandist, „combative and with spirit of initiative” – as described in the PCR archives, has taught that prosecutors and the party are one. That’s what he believes to this day. It is possible for Florea to force a detention order, arrest, hoping to obtain at least a judicial control to keep Kovesi in the country and make it impossible for her to travel to Brussels.

With this apparently politically driven investigation, the PSD-ALDE government is taking a big step towards authoritarianism. More accurately said, it is on its way towards instituting a republic of thugs, a Bizzaro world in which theft is allowed and a functional judiciary means abuse.

With the use of prosecutors in the fight against opponents, PSD and ALDE have passed a red light on its way to the annihilation of justice. Liviu Dragnea, Călin Popescu Tăriceanu, Dan Voiculescu, Sebastian Ghiţă & Co were not only satisfied with the paralysis of the system, but they wanted revenge, counter-offensive and the use of state institutions in their struggle for total state capture.

We have all seen in the past two years how the gendarmerie used violent suppression against the protesters on August 10, 2018, captured the Constitutional Court, the Court of Auditors, assaulted the unaligned press, and re-routed structures from the Interior Ministry to spy on adversaries, etc.

The use of the special section for magistrates in torpedoing opponents has greater and more serious meanings than might be thought at first. It is a brutal act of revenge, a flagrant institutional abuse, a dangerous deviance from democratic principles. It is the message sent by the high profile corrupt individuals to those who have investigated them: We now investigate you, destroy you, chase you wherever you go, we grind you into dust even if that means destroying democracy in the process.

This is still an exemplary execution meant to inhibit the few institutions that are not yet held at the behest of the powers that be. It is, if you want, yet another explicit declaration of war by the thugs who have captured the state.

Those who have executed this odious political order will have to answer after justice returns to its bed. Until then, it is only up to us to somehow stop Romania’s disintegration as a democratic state. Four months from now, when Romania will pass on the EU presidency, there will be no limits.

Traducerea: Ruxandra Stoicescu