Prosecutors’ trust in the vetting process in the last two years has decreased a lot, said the head of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office Veronica Dragalin. According to her, the experience of pre-vetting makes some of the prosecutors not to consider the extraordinary assessment an efficient and fair process. So as not to take the integrity test, 10 prosecutors of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office resigned and their departure greatly complicated the institution’s work, IPN reports.
The head of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office said that 10 prosecutors lately resigned, refusing to go through the extraordinary assessment. The prosecutor who managed the investigation of the bank fraud and other prosecutors responsible for important areas left the system.
“We, those who decided to stay in the system, submitted all the necessary documents on June 13. Unfortunately, we have 10 prosecutors who resigned from the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, instead of going ahead with the vetting procedure. It is a challenge to overcome this situation, but we will move forward because this is the law and we comply. Like all the anti-corruption prosecutors, I submitted the documents on June 13. We will see how long the procedure will take. The resignation of the 10 prosecutors affected the work of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office. They were prosecutors who had important files under management. The chief prosecutor responsible for investigating the bank fraud resigned. Four other prosecutors who resigned were from the Court Prosecution Representation Section, where we have about 500 criminal cases,” Veronica Dragalin stated in the talk show “In the Context” on the public television channel.
Veronica Dragalin believes that after the reformation of the SCM and SCP, the two entities should focus on the system cleanup. However, the APO chief says that both she and the prosecutors remaining in the system will comply with the law on extraordinary assessment.
“We saw the pre-vetting experience. We saw the public interviews, the results regarding particular people who were candidates for the position of member of the SCM or SCP. And in these two years, prosecutors’ trust in the vetting as an objective, efficient and fair process has decreased a lot. In my opinion, as we now have a SCM and a SCP that went through the pre-vetting, were reformed, these two bodies can further manage the prosecutor’s office and the courts. But we do not write the laws in this country. We comply with the political decision regarding the vetting,” stated the head of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.
According to a press release of the APO, after the 10 prosecutors resigned, there are now 38 anticorruption prosecutors who have about 700 criminal cases under their management, including 200 at the criminal investigation stage and 500 in court.
