General Prosecutor: Justice Minister Is Exploiting A Registry Error In Nomination File

Lazar accused the Justice Minister of trying to exploit the situation and distort the truth in the case, to gain validity for his proposal to dismiss him from office.

The document in question, a solution to close a civil case involving President Klaus Iohannis, was emitted by prosecutor Cristian Lazar from the General Prosecutor’s Office, with it being erroneously copied into the list of documents relevant for the general prosecutor’s 2016 nomination. It was later removed from the final file when the error was observed.

Justice Minister Tudorel Toader stated last week, in his assessment of Augustin Lazar’s activity, that the solution to close the case signed by the latter was part of the nomination file sent to President Klaus Iohannis, alluding towards possible blackmailing in the general prosecutor’s nomination process.

Lazar also responded to another accusation made by the minister, who said that the evaluation of his activity between 2011 and 2013 was made by a commission which he led at the time, stating that it was made in compliance with legal norms by the other two members of the committee and a supplementary member.

Romanian Justice Minister Tudorel Toader announced on October 24 that he will launch the procedure to dismiss General Prosecutor Augustin Lazar from office, after criticizing his activity in a 20-point assessment.

The minister’s reasons for launching the request varied from procedural problems in Lazar’s appointment to the office in 2016, to the fact that he criticized the recent formation of a section to investigate magistrates.

In the announcement, Toader stated that upon documenting the prosecutor’s nomination for the office in 2016, he found that it a lacked a mandatory review on his recent activity, and that when he requested a copy from the country’s top judicial watchdog, CSM, it was dated one year after the decree which appointed Lazar as general prosecutor.

Justice Minister Tudorel Toader requested CSM on Wednesday to rule on whether it would be legal to publish the documents from the general prosecutor’s nomination file.

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