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Governmental Corruption in Romania

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Governmental Corruption in Romania Dr. Michael Hein University of Greifswald Department of Political and Communication Sciences Baderstraße 6/7 17487 Greifswald Germany [email protected] www.michaelhein.de · www.ipk.uni-greifswald.de (Non-)Fighting Governmental Corruption in Post-Socialist Romania The Misuse of Constitutional Rules and the Anti-Corruption Discourse Paper prepared for the 11th Annual International Young Researchers Conference at the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio: POSTCOMMUNIST CORRUPTION: CAUSES, MANIFESTATIONS, CONSEQUENCES March 29–March 31, 2012 DRAFT VERSION Please do not quote or distribute without permission. Comments welcome! Abstract When Romania’s accession process to the European Union entered its decisive phase in the middle of the 2000s, the fight against political, especially governmental corruption began to dom- inate the political discourse in this country. However, while a whole series of criminal investiga- tions have been conducted since then, until today no single former or current (prime) minister has been convicted of a corruption crime by the court of final appeal. From 2006 till 2009 the country was instead confronted with a constitutional conflict, in which the vast majority of the political elite continuously fought for being prevented from prosecution and conviction. Al- though the prosecution of corruption crimes seems to yield its first irreversible successes now, the extent of governmental corruption steadily remains high and many politicians steadily react against the enforcement of the law. This paper focuses on the interplay of governmental corruption, constitutional and legal rules and the anticorruption discourse in Romania. In particular, the following line of argument will be presented: The post-socialist political elite in Romania quite naturally use governmental offices for personal purposes against the public good. Therefore, they are not interested in a successful fight against corruption. Instead, »corruption« is predominantly (mis-)used as a rhetorical and ju- dicial means in political struggles. In contrast, a few political and legal actors can be identified as honestly viewing corruption as a problem to be solved. Thanks to them and the continuous ex- ternal pressure exerted by the European Union, but – above all – due to important improve- ments of the legal framework and the establishment well functioning, rule-of-law-oriented pro- secution offices, the fight against governmental corruption currently faces its decisive phase. 1 Introduction On January 30, 2012, the former Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Năstase was sentenced by the High Court of Cassation and Justice (Înalta Curte de Casaţie şi Justiţie – ICCJ) in a procedure at first instance to two years in prison. The Romanian supreme court additionally banned him from run- ning for a public office or parliamentary seat for the same period. Năstase was found guilty of having illegally funded his presidential election campaign in 2004. Using his position as head of government he illegally collected about 1.6 million Euro from several companies by officially de- claring their payments as attendance fees for a governmental symposium. Apart from this most spectacular case of governmental corruption which even captured broad international media at- tention,1 the past year came up as a real »season for corruption fighters« in Romania. During the last twelve months, the ICCJ has handed down seven verdicts in corruption cases on former members of government. Whereas in the only definitive verdict the former Labor Minister Paul Păcuraru was acquitted from a bribery charge, four other ex-ministers were sentenced in several first-instance criminal procedures to terms of imprisonment. Additionally, the aforementioned Adrian Năstase won an acquittal in a second corruption case. These developments have brought the fight against governmental corruption as the key as- pect of political corruption to a new level in Romania. For the first time since the end of social- ism highest public office holders were successfully put on trial. The obviously vast extent of gov- ernmental corruption proves the relevance of these developments. The sheer amount of investig- ations may serve here as a approximate indicator: No less than 18 former or current ministers and prime ministers and 14 secretaries and undersecretaries of state were investigated by the pro- secution offices during the last decade. Due to the external pressure exerted by the European Union (EU) in the context of Romania’s integration process as well as by virtue of the internal pressure put by several actors of the »civil society« and the mass media, the fight against corrup- tion began to dominate the political discourse in Romania at the beginning of the new millenni- um.2 Since then, a large number of laws and ordinances have been adopted or changed, transpar- ency rules were introduced and new state institutions established. Above all, in 2002 the National Anticorruption Prosecution Office (Parchetul Naţional Anticorupţie – PNA) was founded.3 1 See e.g. New York Times, January 31, 2012, p. A10; The Economist, January 31, 2012; <http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2012/01/corruption-romania?fsrc=gn_ep>, 02/21/2012; Die Presse, January 31, 2012; <http://diepresse.com/home/politik/aussenpolitik/728167/Rumaeni- en_Haftstrafe-fuer-Expremier-Nastase?_vl_backlink=/home/politik/aussenpolitik/index.do>, 02/21/2012. 2 Precupeţu, Iuliana: Patterns of Perceptions Towards the Anticorruption Fight and Policies in Romania. Balancing Between Façade and Essence. In: Calitatea Vieţii 20 (2009) 3–4, pp. 325–350, p. 328f. 3 For an overview see Schroth, Peter W./Bostan, Ana Daniela: International Constitutional Law and Anti-Corruption Measures in the European Union’s Accession Negotiations: Romania in Comparative Perspective. In: The Amer- ican Journal of Comparative Law 52 (2004) 3, pp. 625–711; Toader, Camelia: Korruptionsbekämpfung und Jus- – 2 – The decisive phase, however, began with the change of government and the election of in- cumbent President Traian Băsescu in 2004. These main changes in the political landscape brought a number of actors at the helm of the justice ministry and the the prosecution office who did not only carried on shop window politics for the watchmen in Brussels but honestly started to fight corruption – even against politicians from the own ruling coalition. Until then, the efforts against corruption had been mainly »seen as a ›transition tennis‹ in which the ball is being played between various institutions without touching the ground and getting to the roots of corruption.«4 Since 2005 the anticorruption institutions have intensified their work and – not least due to several important improvements of the legal framework – finally yield their first suc- cesses now. In this context, in 2006 the PNA was renamed National Anticorruption Directorate (Direcţia Naţională Anticorupţie – DNA). Nevertheless, until today no single former or current (prime) minister has definitively been convicted. Instead, the vast majority of the Romanian polit- ical elite – a »coalition of the unwilling«5 – continuously fights by all available means for being prevented from prosecution and conviction. The aim of this paper is to analyze these struggles on an efficient and effective fight against governmental corruption in Romania. The analysis is based on the observation that corruption is a widespread phenomenon in the Romanian society in general and the elites in particular. 6 Partic- ularly conspicuous in this context are the manifold phrases of everyday language like »atenţie«, »plocon«, »peşcheş« or »bacşiş«. As a consequence, the post-socialist political elite quite naturally use governmental offices for personal purposes against the public good and are not interested in a successful anticorruption policy. Hence, it is quite clear that informal factors like political culture, historical legacies, economic inequality, low levels of generalized trust and persistent patrimonial networks are primarily able to explain the continuing high level of corruption in Romania. 7 With- in this framework, however, I would like to stress the effects that formal factors have on the success tizreform in Rumänien. In: WGO-Monatshefte für osteuropäisches Recht 46 (2004) 4, pp. 251–265. 4 Precupeţu, op. cit., p. 330. 5 Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina: The Learning Curve Revisited. Building the Rule of Law in East Central Europe. Paper presented at the 5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam, 10–12 September, 2009, p. 18. 6 See for an overview Precupeţu, Iuliana: Corruption and Anticorruption Measures in Romania. In: Calitatea Vieţii 18 (2007) 3–4, pp. 383–398. 7 See Hall, Richard Andrew: Political Culture in Post-Ceauşescu Romania. In: Carey, Henry F. (ed.): Romania since 1989. Politics, Economics, and Society. Lanham et al. 2004, pp. 215–225; Olteanu, Tina: Korrupte Demokratie? Diskurs und Wahrnehmung in Österreich und Rumänien im Vergleich. Wiesbaden 2012 (forthcoming); Id.: Kor- ruption in Rumänien – ein Erbe des Staatssozialismus? In: Segert, Dieter (ed.): Postsozialismus. Hinterlas- senschaften des Staatssozialismus und neue Kapitalismen in Europa. Wien 2007, pp. 65–85; Miller, William L./Grødeland, Åse B./Koshechkina, Tatyana Y.: A Culture of Corruption? Coping with Government in Post-com- munist Europe. Budapest et al. 2001; Uslaner, Eric M.: Corruption, Inequality, and the Rule of Law. The Bulging Pocket Makes the Easy Life. Cambridge 2010, p. 121ff.;
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