Romania’s Ex PM Says Country Needs Anticorruption Bodies But Judgment Should Be Left To Courts

Asked whether he agrees with the Constitutional Court ruling that said the integrity agency publishing public officials’ wealth statement breaches their right to privacy, Tariceanu said an institution such as the integrity agency is necessary but it needs to be more careful when making public statements.

„The integrity agency is an institution that has been surrounded by controversy and that has upset some people, but such an institution is necessary in a country so affected by endemic corruption as Romania,” Tariceanu said.

He added, however, that anticorruption bodies should be more cautious in making public statements and giving out information unless they have sound evidence, otherwise public officials are being judged and convicted in the media instead of courts of law.

„I think the Anticorruption Department and the Integrity Agency are necessary institutions,” Tariceanu said, adding that these anticorruption bodies need to work independently.

Romania’s integrity agency, a EU-required anticorruption body, has been stripped of its main attributions in screening public officials wealth and interest statements and recommending prosecution for wrongdoing, following a Constitutional Court ruling last week.

The Court, which motivated its decision Thursday, said the agency mistakes investigative for judicial powers, its publication of public officials’ wealth statements breaches the right to privacy and the agency’s role, as regulated by law, doesn’t apply the presumption of innocence and forces the people investigated to bring in evidence proving their innocence.

Legislators now have 45 days to amend the provisions in the law the Court deemed unconstitutional.