Court Rejects President’s Challenge On Discrimination Ruling

The court’s decision can be appealed in the Romanian High Court of Justice.

Thursday, before the court, Basescu’s lawyer said that there is no law text founding the sanction against the president, stating that the sanction on discrimination needs to be regulated through special law.

He said that Basescu’s statement could not be dubbed discriminatory. The president’s lawyer said that the act of discrimination occurs when the person involved makes a comparison. "Through his statement, Traian Basescu did not perform a comparative and discriminatory analysis. An analysis of the statement cannot lead to the conclusion that the purpose was the damaging of certain rights of the Rroma ethnicity. It needs to be acknowledged that there was no intention to discriminate. The good faith of mister Traian Basescu cannot be questioned," said the lawyer.

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According to him, Basescu made the statement “in a moment of agitation," since in those days he was under pressure from the media.

The lawyer criticized CNCD, saying that it does not apply the same sanctions for acts similar to the one in question and he offered a few examples of public figures making similar statements but going unsanctioned by the council.

On the other hand, the CNCD representative said that, given his position, the president should not have made the statement, even though he was in private space. "The statement was recorded on the cell phone. Mister president needed to be careful even in private space. Is such a statement acceptable in private space? It targeted the dignity of the person he was talking about. We feel that, with respect for mister Basescu’s position, as president, this was a matter that needed to be made public," said the lawyer.

He indicated that so far the council sanctioned many political figures for the statements they made. "Basescu represents us as well as his lawyers, but I feel that at that moment, he also represented that tv reporter," concluded the council lawyer.

On May 19, 2007, Romanian president Traian Basescu forcibly removed a cell phone from Andreea Pana, reporter with television station Antena 1, who was filming him while he was shopping in a hypermarket.

When the head of state got into his personal vehicle, the device recorded Basesuc while he was calling the journalist a "stinking gypsy." The recording was not deleted.

Later, the device was returned, and the TV station employees managed to recover the recording with Basescu’s statements, which was made public.