Judicial Inspection exercises new disciplinary action against Kovesi

The Judicial Inspection (IJ) exercised a new disciplinary action, namely the third, against Laura Codruta Kovesi, Chief Prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), for violating the provisions of the Constitutional Court's decision by refusing to come to Parliament - the Special Investigation Committee, the IJ announced on Wednesday.

According to a communiqué sent to STIRIPESURSE, the disciplinary action was exercised for acts that violate professional honor and the prestige of justice, committed in the exercise of or outside the exercise of the job duties and the non-observance of the Constitutional Court's decisions, disciplinary deviations provided for by art. 99 lit. a) and b) of Law no. 303/2004.

"The motivation of the action refers to the fact that the chief prosecutor of the DNA violated the explicit provisions of the Constitutional Court's Decision No. 611 of 3 November 2017 by refusing to appear before the Romanian Parliament - the Chamber of Deputies' and Senate's special committee of inquiry into the organisation of the 2009 elections and the results of the presidential election and to provide the requested information or to make available the other documents or evidence held, useful to the committee's activity," the source quoted reads.

The IJ also states that the DNA chief prosecutor's public position, manifested after the decision of the Constitutional Court, has affected the professional honor and the prestige of the magistrate function with the consequence of the violation of the provisions of articles 4 para. (1) and 90 of Law no. 303/2004, art. 104 of Law no. 161/2003 on certain measures for ensuring transparency in the exercise of public dignity, public functions and in the business environment, prevention and sanctioning of corruption, and of Articles 7, 17, 18 and 20 of the Code of Conduct for Judges and Prosecutors.

The Judicial Inspection shows that the disciplinary probe was forwarded the Disciplinary Department of the Prosecution Section of the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM), which will decide on the magistrate's responsibility. 

There are two other complaints from the Judicial Inspection against Laura Codruta Kovesi for disciplinary misconduct, one of them having the term of May 9.

According to a IJ press release, in Kovesi's case, one of the disciplinary misconduct acts refers to 'the manifestations that damage the honour or professional reliability or the prestige of the institution, committed while or outside exerting the job duties, consisting of having expressed, during a working meeting, positions meant to damage the honour and professional reliability of the prosecutor magistrates, as well as the prestige of the institution, circumstances identified in the audio recordings that came up in the media environment on 18 June 2017.

At the same time, the IJ says, Kovesi used a superior and aggressive tone with her fellow prosecutors, inadmissible in relation to the minimal standards of ethics of a magistrate, generating among public opinion a sense of indignation and legitimate doubt regarding the observance of the principles of the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws, as well as the impartiality of the prosecutors.

On April 11, the IJ announced having conducted a second disciplinary action against DNA Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi over the prosecutor's appointment to a control team of a magistrate in an obvious state of incompatibility.

Also, The Judicial Inspection has conducted disciplinary action against Ms Laura Codruta Kovesi over commission of disciplinary deviations provided for under Article 99 (g) of the Law No.303/2004, namely failure to observe (...) other administrative obligations provided for by the law or regulations" consisting in the fact that, for the same thematic control, she breached the provisions of Article 65 (3) of the Law no. 304/2004, republished and amended, transposed into the provisions of Article 7 (s) of the Internal Regulations of the National Anticorruption Directorate, which regards the competence to order and conduct thematic control: 'control for special instances and thematic control shall be ordered by the managers of the prosecutor's offices and carried out by them directly or through designated prosecutors', by appointing the counselor to the DNA chief prosecutor, a reassigned judge, who was obviously in a state of incompatibility.