A number of prosecutors of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office are in a situation where they might not pass the vetting process, but not because they would not pass the ethical or financial integrity test, but because of the selection conditions imposed by politicians from outside the prosecution system, said prosecutor Victoria Furtună, who tendered her resignation from the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office. She noted that the members of the pre-vetting and vetting commissions were given abusive powers. They cannot be held accountable for the taken decisions or for undermining an irrevocable court decision or a decision taken by a law enforcement agency, let alone interference with privacy.
“In the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, all the prosecutors are upright. I haven’t seen a criminal case or disciplinary proceedings brought against any APO prosecutor. The fact that they will be subjected to this anarchy called vetting, the fact that the vetting and pre-vetting commissions apply double standards make them decide to take or not to take the vetting,” Victoria Furtună said in a press conference hosted by IPN. She noted that the prosecutors, even though they know that the National Integrity Authority said that they haven’t violated the legal regime, haven’t been involved in investigations and disciplinary proceedings, they are discouraged from going to vetting as they saw how their colleagues were treated.
Victoria Furtună also said that the pre-vetting and vetting exercises failed. She doesn’t understand how a group of persons from outside the system can undermine the Self-Administration Council of the Prosecutor’s Office, which has powers to evaluate the prosecutors. Nor are the procedures for challenging these commissions’ decisions clear. Anticipating chain resignations of prosecutors disturbed by the witnessed slippages, Victoria Furtună said that the prosecution service is close to a real collapse and that the prosecutors have to give up the profession they exercised conscientiously.
According to her, the chaos in the justice system is generated not from within it, as some would like to believe, but by external factors. Politicians want to subjugate the justice system for personal or party interests.
Note: IPN Agency offers the right of reply to persons who consider themselves targeted in the news made from the statements of the organizers of this press conference, including by facilitating the organization of another press conference under similar conditions.
