Seven member organizations of the “Citizen NGOs” Group have published an open letter demanding the “immediate” resignation of Minister Cătălin Predoiu, according to a press release. The NGOs claim “a sequence of facts that indicate a possible interference by the Minister of Justice, Mr. Cătălin Predoiu, in a corruption file under court debate”, with reference to the file of the husband of the former head of DIICOT, Giorgiana Hosu.
“We consider that Mr. Predoiu far exceeded his duties as a minister, and the whole evolution of the facts raises reasonable suspicions about an attempt to cover up a political intervention in justice. Under these conditions, we consider that Mr. Predoiu is morally incompatible with the position of Minister of Justice and we request his immediate resignation”, the signatory NGOs say.
Their position comes after G4Media revealed that Predoiu met at the Ministry of Justice with Claudia Jderu, one of the judges in the Hosu case.
Read below the open letter of the 7 NGOs:
Over the past two weeks, I have followed with attention and concern a sequence of facts that indicate possible interference by the Minister of Justice, Mr. Cătălin Predoiu, in a corruption case pending in court.
On January 18, 2023, in an interview, Mr. Cătălin Predoiu, the Minister of Justice, stated that the sentence in the file of Mr. Dan Hosu (husband of former DIICOT chief prosecutor, Georgiana Hosu), would be acquitted. But the Minister made a mistake, because the case is still being judged, and the next term is scheduled for February 7, 2023.
The next day, on January 19, Mr. Predoiu presented a public apology, stating that he had learned the information “from unofficial sources”, but without explaining in what situations the Minister of Justice ends up discussing “unofficially” about files pending before the courts, especially about a file with a high political charge.
Later, the G4Media publication revealed that also on January 19, Mr. Predoiu had a meeting at the Ministry of Justice with one of the judges in the aforementioned case, which he had convened under the official motivation of discussing the presence of the magistrate from the Bucharest Court of Appeal on the list of proposals approved by the Government for the position of judge of Romania at the European Court of Human Rights. However, the result of this selection had been publicly communicated by the Romanian Government three months before, on October 19, 2022.
In a response to the same publication, sent on January 31, the Ministry of Justice states that the decision regarding the list of candidates for ECHR judge was taken in the Government meeting on January 18, 2023, which would justify the summoning of the lady judge to the ministry on the 19 January.
G4Media journalists continued the investigation and showed, on February 1, that there was no document related to these appointments to the ECHR on the agenda of the January 18 Government meeting, publicly communicated. Furthermore, on the Government’s website, the announcement regarding the meeting on October 19, 2022 has been modified so that it no longer includes the memorandum regarding the ECHR. However, the information remained in the press briefings of the day.
On the same day, the Government came back with clarifications from which it follows that on October 19 the decision was postponed, and the communique from that time represents a “material error”. And in the meeting on January 18, the memorandum on judges for the ECHR was allegedly discussed in the confidential documents section. The government has offered no explanation for the sudden declassification of the document, although it was public in October.
Considering the above facts, we find the following:
– There are reasonable suspicions that the Minister of Justice, Mr. Cătălin Predoiu, had access to information from a pending file, a file with a high political charge.
– Mister. Predoiu provided no reasonable explanation for the “unofficial sources” of his information.
– Coincidence or not, Mr. Predoiu entered into a direct dialogue with one of the judges in the file in question, the day after he publicly admitted that he had information from the file.
– The Ministry of Justice and the Government of Romania modified information from the official communiques, apparently with the aim of covering the pretext invoked by Mr. Delivery for summoning the judge in question.
We consider that Mr. Predoiu far exceeded his duties as a minister, and the whole evolution of the facts raises reasonable suspicions about an attempt to cover up a political intervention in justice.
Under these conditions, we consider that Mr. Predoiu is morally incompatible with the position of Minister of Justice and we request his immediate resignation.
Signatory organizations, members of the NGO Coalition for the Citizen
Center for Public Innovation
CeRe: Resource Center for Public Participation
ActiveWatch
Funky Citizens
The Spiritual Militia
Respiro Association
FILIA Center
CIVIC Association
