Polemics between JusMin and Prosecutor General over Lazar’s candidacy file. Toader: There wasn’t and isn’t any error regarding dismissal ordinance in PG’s candidacy file. PG Lazar: This is a typical method of manipulating the truth. JusMin Toader: I wouldn’t have accepted Lazar’s incomplete candidacy file in contest for PG office

Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader specified that there was no “error” in respect to the ordinance of dismissal of the case involving President Iohannis from Prosecutor General Lazar’s candidacy file. “I just want to specify this! There wasn’t and there isn’t any error regarding the ordinance of dismissal in PG Lazar’s candidacy file,” Tudorel Toader wrote on Wednesday evening on his Facebook page. He continued with the question “how the presence of such ordinance is justified in the file?” adding that “we finally find out ‘the justification’ – the court clerk made a mistake when multiplying his documents.” The Minister brought to mind that “another ‘mistake’ also happened on March 20, 2018, when the court clerk multiplied the Secret Protocol of 2009, when she sent it to the Ministry of Justice without the last two pages, which seemed to have “stuck” to the copy sent to the CSM [the Superior Council of Magistracy].”   PG Lazar: This is a typical method of manipulating the truth   Prosecutor General Augustin Lazar argues that Justice Minister Tudorel Toader “is exploiting a registration error from March 2016,” with the ordinance on the dismissal of a case involving President Klaus Iohannis was not issued, confirmed or verified by the prosecutor general, but by another prosecutor with a similar name, Cristian A. Lazar. “I found out only after one week of suspense that the ordinance invoked by the Minister of Justice was not issued, confirmed or verified by the undersigned in his capacity as prosecutor general with the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Alba Iulia Court of Appeals, as the Minister seemed to imply, enumerating it [this ordinance] among the reasons for my removal from office. This is a typical method of manipulating the truth. The Minister of Justice exploits a registration error from March 2016, when there were selected the necessary documents for my appointment as prosecutor general with the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice. While making copies of the documents belonging to A. Lazar, the court clerk made a mistake and took his documents as being mine, because of the similarity of our names, but the respective ordinance were in fact issued by the deputy chief prosecutor Cristian A. Lazar from the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice. This severance of causes ordinance with respect to other persons reached, by declining of jurisdiction, to the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Alba Iulia Court of Appeals, a case that I have assigned to another prosecutor for settlement,” reads a message published on Wednesday evening by Prosecutor General Augustin Lazar.   JusMin Toader: I wouldn’t have accepted Lazar’s incomplete candidacy file in contest for PG office   Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader on Thursday stated that if he were at the helm of the Ministry of Justice back at the time when the contest was held for occupying the prosecutor general office, he wouldn’t have accepted Augustin Lazar’s candidacy file because it was not complete. Asked at the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) headquarters about the fact that Augustin Lazar claimed the Minister Justice pulled a manipulation attempt when he referred to the prosecutor general’s candidacy file, Toader said: “I would prefer not to comment, for Mr. Lazar should have said if the affirmations were correct or not, instead. I mean, we are risking to draw the wrong conclusions before seeing if what he said was actually true or not and I will give you another example: March 15, 12.22 am -2016. In the context in which the law says clearly which are the pieces that must be included in the file, the Ministry only received through email a letter of intent and a CV, while the deadline expired on March 16 – it is all written – and the file was incomplete, I for one, if I were Minister back then, I wouldn’t have accepted him in the contest for the appointment as prosecutor general as long as his file was not complete.” Romania’s Prosector General Augustin Lazar stated on Thursday that Justice Minister’s statement regarding the discovery of a fraud in his candidacy file for this office proved to be “a manipulation of the public opinion” and announced that he reserves his right to take action according to the legal procedures in force. “The statement regarding the alleged fraud, after two and a half years, in the appointment process of the prosecutor general turned out to be totally lacking support of evidence and, more than that, it proved to be a manipulation of the public opinion, a manipulation and an unjustified suspense regarding a statement that was made in an interested manner, in order to serve a visibly vitiated dismissal procedure. I would like to tell you that at a mere reading of the Superior Council of Magistracy [CSM] decision of 21 April 2016, we will be able to see that the Prosecutors’ Section meticulously checked each of the legal conditions that were imposed on the candidates, namely minimum 10 years seniority, the lack of sanctions over the last 3 years – and please note that only for the lack of sanctions the three-year term was required – and it was still necessary the condition of a very good mark at the last assessment. Therefore, the Superior Council of Magistracy, which is the guarantor of the independence of justice, established that all the legal conditions for the candidates were met. The rest is politics and I reserve the right to act according to the legal procedures in force,” PG Augustin Lazar stated upon entering the CSM headquarters.