Abuse of office, cap amounts and principles

The Constitutional Court of Romania has rejected the application to challenge the constitutionality of the lack of a cap amount for the damage caused by the abuse of office made by the former wife of the Social Democratic leader Liviu Dragnea

Mihai Pelin, 07.06.2017, 13:23

The Constitutional Court of Romania has rejected the appeal made by Bombonica Prodana, the former wife of the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Liviu Dragnea, against a certain article in the Criminal Code which regulates the abuse of office. The application to challenge the respective article was invoked in a file in which she was prosecuted together with her former husband and several former employees of the Social Assistance Directorate of Teleorman County (in the south). The Court judges decided that it was up to Parliament to regulate the value and the seriousness of the damage caused by the offense.

Bombonica Prodana made this application in March and her lawyer said the application had to be submitted to the Constitutional Court because, in her case, the damage was below 50,000 euros and so, it should not be considered a criminal case. In the same case Liviu Dragnea was prosecuted for instigation to abuse of office and intellectual forgery. At the time, Bombonica Prodana was employed by the Child Protection Directorate of Teleorman County, an institution subordinated to the Teleorman County Council led by Liviu Dragnea.

Investigators say that Liviu Dragnea made several employees of the Social Assistance Directorate fictitiously hire two persons who were members of the Social Democratic Party’s local organization in Teleorman. Although the two were working exclusively for the Social Democratic Party, their salaries were paid from public money. If Liviu Dragnea receives a new sentence in this trial, he also risks executing the two-year suspended sentence he received last year in the so-called “Referendum” case.

This would definitively push him out of the political scene, which he has clearly dominated after the December 2016 elections. In the “Referendum” case, Liviu Dragnea was prosecuted because, in 2012, before and during the unfolding of the referendum for the impeachment of the then president Traian Basescu, he put in place a system, in his capacity as Secretary General of the Social Democratic Party, meant to modify the result of the vote in order to force a quorum which would have led to the president’s impeachment.

At present, tens of mayors and presidents of county councils have received a sentence or are being investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate for abuse of office. In early 2017 the Government tried to solve their problems. The famous Government decree no. 13 meant to amend the criminal code, which was passed at the end of January and subsequently repealed, stipulated that people could be indicted for abuse of office if the damage caused was of at least 44 thousand euros. This controversial decision then made hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in what was the largest-scale protest since the fall of Communism in December 1989. (Translated by L. Simion)