15 years of anti-corruption in Romania: augmentation, aberration and acceleration

Challenging the Rule of Law in Romania: The Metamorphosis of Political Discourse towards Populism

“…In time, the DNA produced many high-profile convictions, which gained praise in the region (Carp, 2014;Mungiu-Pippidi, 2018). However, the sizeable budget, growing personnel associated with the numbers of prosecutions and the DNA's modus operandi are seen by some legal scholars as focusing on results at an accelerated rate (see Hoxhaj, 2019, p. 140;Mendelski, 2020). This acceleration backfired in 2017-2019, as Romania's largest party, i.e., Social Democratic Party (PSD) won the 2016 election by a landslide, inevitably 'push(ing) to relax the fight against corruption and to remove the head of DNA' (Hoxhaj, 2019, p. 140).…”

“…It legitimised the PSD's institutional actions by presenting a logic that persuaded the people of their 'legitimacy to change institutions' (Schmidt, 2008, p. 314). The DNA's high budget and the frequency of convictions (Mendelski, 2020), was branded to have been a bias against PSD. The coincidental arrival of each indictment of Dragnea days before the election campaign encouraged the PSD to contest the DNA, by enacting OUGs to shield its leader.…”

Decoupled Rationalisation: Judicial Anticorruption and Fragmentation of Parliament and the Magistracy

“…The most acrimonious debates surrounding Romanian anticorruption have centred on the role and power of magistrates, especially of prosecutors affiliated with the National Anticorruption Directorate, or the DNA. Variously presented as usurpers of electoral power, stooges of the security services, or lone wolves seeking personal enrichment, anticorruption prosecutors have also been a source of contention among academics, with Romania's most famous anticorruption scholar claiming that the DNA is a political tool (Mungiu-Pippidi 2018), while other scholars have accused the DNA and its chiefs for aggrandizing themselves at the expense of the procedural rights of the accused (Mendelski 2020). 18 Unfortunately, insufficient attention has been paid to the effects of judicial anticorruption on the magistracy itself: this is the goal of the current section, and I begin with the incentives and professional structures of judges and prosecutors.…”

“…19 With this in mind, we should note that the anticorruption drive has created new resources within the magistracy, and therefore new constituencies for and fights over said resources. For one, until 2016 the DNA experienced a consistent period of growth, hiring ever more prosecutors and becoming essentially a parallel procuracy, with its own system of territorial offices and employing as many prosecutors as the more populous appellate circuits (Mendelski 2020). The same situation holds for the Directorate for Combatting Crimes of Terrorism and Organised Crime (DIICOT), whose jurisdiction not infrequently overlaps with the DNA's.…”

One decade onwards: assessing the impact of European Union membership on Bulgaria and Romania

“…Nevertheless, this was arguably one of the concessions made by Bulgaria and Romania to the EU, namely in terms of reassessing its Union-wide mechanisms for upholding rule of law principles, equally exacerbated by the recent attacks on democratic checks and balances of Hungarian and Polish governments. Mendelski (2020) focuses on judicial developments taking place in Romania arguing that quantitative improvements in the anti-corruption saga of the country did not reflect qualitatively, with many excesses and violations of judicial processes. Several mainstream analysts may not share his highly critical perspective, yet his assessment is rooted in clear evidence of excesses from the judicial institutions involved in the justice process.…”