Recorder Probe: Judges Reveal How Cases Are Delayed to Protect Suspects

  Recorder aired an investigation on Tuesday evening about the state of justice in Romania, the phenomenon of statutes of limitations, but also the effects of the centralization of power at the level of “some magistrates who cohabit with politicians.   In the Recorder documentary, military prosecutor Liviu Lascu, Crin Bologa, the former chief prosecutor of the DNA between the periods of Laura Codruta Kovesi and Marius Voineag, as well as a prosecutor from the DNA and a judge from the Court of Appeal, who spoke anonymously, were interviewed.   Claudiu Sandu, the representative of prosecutors in the CSM, said that the excessively formal interpretation of the law has reached a point where evidence is thrown out of cases “for anything,” which he metaphorically described as being “over a comma.” “We’ve come to reinvent the Law,” Sandu said, adding that “I can’t remember a major guilty verdict lately.” He stated that this “massacre of the very idea of justice” demoralizes magistrates and leaves citizens defenseless.   Laurentiu Besu, a judge, said that magistrates who deliver rulings “to please court leadership” are doing great harm “to the thousands of honest magistrates who make up the majority.”   Judge Andrea Chis, who also served in the CSM, recounted how she submitted requests to understand why the CSM itself had ordered the reshuffling of panels of “criminal judges,” meaning judges “who had cases to rule on.” Those cases were restarted with the new composition of the courts, some ending up time-barred due to delays directly linked to the CSM’s decisions.   The Recorder investigation highlighted specific cases in which defendants with political connections or significant business influence—such as Marian Vanghelie, Cristian Burci, or Puiu Popoviciu—benefited from trials prolonged until the statute of limitations expired. The extension of proceedings was achieved through the replacement of judicial panels by court leadership, including changes made right before the verdict was due.   Expiration of cases through delays is only the final step in what one interviewee described as “a Romania that has become a paradise for criminals.” The system first benefits offenders by suppressing the willingness of prosecutors’ offices to pursue major cases. Both Liviu Lascu, former head of the military section at the DNA, and a DNA prosecutor interviewed anonymously, said that from the moment he arrived at the institution, DNA chief prosecutor Marius Voineag demanded “control over the cases.”   The protected-identity prosecutor told Recorder that since Voineag’s appointment as chief prosecutor, case prosecutors have been required to report to him every request submitted to the judge of rights and liberties.   Such requests typically concern arrests, searches, or surveillance of phones and communications of individuals investigated in the cases.   According to the Recorder documentary, Voineag refused the journalists’ request for an interview.“This never happened under the previous leadership,” Lascu said.   What is happening inside the DNA is not an isolated situation, said the same prosecutor interviewed under the protection of anonymity, speaking with a disguised voice. The prosecutor stated that: “A state of resignation exists throughout the entire judicial system.”   The prosecutor further claims the following: “The head of the Directorate requested that all prosecutors from the central structure and from the territorial offices report directly to him any request made to the judge of rights and liberties for obtaining interception warrants targeting those under investigation. What could be the interest of the politically appointed head of the Directorate?! To find out, at the zero moment of initiating such procedures, who is being targeted by the prosecutors’ warrants. We do not believe that this order has any other rationale than the need for control.” “The technique of ignoring and isolating a prosecutor is used very often. If action in a certain case is not desired, any request made to the section chief is ignored and postponed until the prosecutor understands that such action is not wanted and that there is no point in insisting. The section chief would say, ‘Okay, send it to me by email and I’ll get back to you.’ When you were no longer contacted, and you followed up on that request, and saw that the section chief became irritable, that was the sign that nothing was supposed to be done in that case. You cannot conduct an investigation if you do not receive the full cooperation of your superior. No address is signed. No criminal file number is issued. All levers are used so that the entire activity is paralyzed.” “You must keep in mind that the criminal investigation phase is not public. The press has no access. We are not allowed to speak. The public is left with the idea that some investigations are ongoing and that’s it. Whether and when they will be resolved, or whether they will receive a correct solution, never reaches the public. In certain cases, there is simply no desire to proceed — that is exactly the expression: ‘there is no desire.’” “A camarilla around the chief prosecutor has been created within the Directorate — people who use different levers to control and stop certain investigations, or to avoid triggering new ones. There are multiple situations, involving several prosecutors, who have felt interference that goes far beyond the natural prerogatives of a chief prosecutor.”   One of the methods through which those sent to trial — and even declared guilty in the first instance — escape punishment is prescription. This prescription, several interviewed judges explained, has come to be caused by prolonging trials through changes in the composition of the court panels.   For example, Recorder showed that in the corruption case of Marian Vanghelie, the case reached the fifth panel during the appeal phase, by which time the offenses became prescribed.   The change in the composition of the panel of judges occurred in this case — and generally occurs — through: the transfer of a judge to another court, the delegation of a judge to a technical department, the end of a judge’s delegation, or the judge’s promotion.   In the case of businessman Cristian Burci, indicted by DIICOT for the alleged looting of Romvag, with damages estimated at €30 million, the trial began in September 2023 at the Bucharest Court of Appeal and progressed without issues until spring 2025. At the hearing on March 26, judge Catalin Pavel disappeared from the panel and was replaced, even though — according to Recorder — he had not requested a reduction in workload, was not delegated or seconded elsewhere, and had no medical issues. The change forced the re-administration of evidence and delayed the case, which still has no sentence and is close to prescription.   The documentary also presents testimonies from inside the Bucharest Court of Appeal, where judges describe how the court’s leadership — the institution where final judgments are issued in major corruption cases — encourages leniency toward defendants and issues discretionary administrative decisions that violate the principle of random case distribution, directing files to judges inclined to hand down favorable rulings to defendants.   Recorder, which noted that its two-hour documentary “compresses more than a year and a half of investigative work,” argues that “major corruption cases are systematically buried.”   “High-profile defendants acquitted on appeal after receiving heavy prison sentences in the first instance, trials dragged out until the offences reach the statute of limitations, final convictions that are re-evaluated and wiped clean. On top of that, suspicions have begun to surface about the DNA blocking certain criminal investigations,” Recorder writes.   One of the interviewed magistrates said that “the feeling is that whatever you do, you get away with it.” At the most recent report of the General Prosecutor’s Office, the same magistrate stated that our country “is closer to being a paradise for criminals than a state governed by the rule of law.”   The documentary, Recorder says, seeks to explain the mechanisms through which a network of interests consisting of magistrates and politicians has captured the judicial system. “In simplified form, the pact between the two sides looks like this: politicians offered laws that created a pyramidal organization of the justice system, placing all power in the hands of a small group of magistrates, and that small group of magistrates offered in exchange a justice system that no longer bothers the powerful,” Recorder adds.   The documentary also discusses the decline in the number of major corruption cases handled by the DNA in recent years. Former and current prosecutors within the DNA told Recorder that the institution’s tone changed after Marius Voineag became chief prosecutor.“There are cases in which there is no will to act,” says one of the prosecutors featured in the Recorder investigation.   The piece highlights the case of military prosecutor Liviu Lascu, removed from the leadership of the DNA’s military section while investigating a series of suspicious acquisitions by the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI).   “I think I can reasonably suspect that what I was doing bothered someone, and I am thinking first and foremost of those I was investigating,” Lascu said in the report. The SRI procurement case was closed after his removal, and the prosecutor claims he also had other investigations concerning security institutions that appear to have been buried after his departure.   According to information collected by Recorder, after Marius Voineag was appointed head of the DNA, more than 20 prosecutors left the institution out of a total of 140 — an unusually high number given that the anti-corruption unit is considered an elite structure to which any prosecutor aspires in their career.   The documentary “Justice Captured” was published on Tuesday evening by Recorder on its own YouTube channel .