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Romania Supreme Court Suspends High Profile Graft Trial

Romania’s Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to suspend the trial in which former labor minister Paul Pacuraru and Ilie Morega, member of the General Assembly of Shareholders in thermal power producers Rovinari and Turceni, are prosecuted on corruption charges.
Romania Supreme Court Suspends High Profile Graft Trial
20 mai 2009, 14:56, English

The Supreme Court upheld the exception of unconstitutionality raised by the lawyers of the two defendants with respect to Government Emergency Ordinance 134/2005 amending Government Emergency Ordinance 43/2002 on the organization and functioning of the National Anticorruption Department (DNA) and decided to send the file to the Constitutional Court to rule on lawyers’ notifications.
 
According to lawyers, government emergency decree 134/2005 goes against section 4 of article 115 of the Romanian Constitution according to which "the Government can adopt emergency decrees only in extraordinary cases whose regulation cannot be deferred and it has the obligation to motivate the measures taken in this respect.
 
Pacuraru was allegedly recorded while asking Gorj county liberal leader Ilie Morega to step in and ask the managers of the Oltenia National Coal Company (SNLO) and those of thermal power producers Turceni and Rovinari to grant contracts to his son’s company, Intratest.
 
Pacuraru said that, in a conversation with his son, Morega offered to facilitate a contract. The minister’s son, Mihnea Pacuraru, allegedly refused the offer politely, informing Morega that the mentioned contract had already been won through an auction. Pacuraru refused to reveal the value of contracts obtained by his son’s company in Gorj, adding that the only sums collected were for the “schooling of 45 people."
 
On September 24, 2007, DNA asked for the presidency’s consent to probe Pacuraru.
 
Later, after a Constitutional Court’s decision, the procedure for the investigation of current and former ministers was amended, the Parliament needs to approve probes against ministers who are also members of Parliament.
 
Thus, on April 14, 2008, the Senate was notified of the start of a criminal investigation against Pacuraru and on August 26, 2008, the Senate approved prosecutors’ request and gave green light to the criminal investigation.
Prosecutors will also investigate the way in which SNLO and Turceni assigned public procurement contracts.