The candidates for the head of the Judicial Inspection today support the interview. The controversial prosecutor who wants to get in office, although not inspector

Judge Roxana Petcu, the current head of the Judicial Inspection, says on Thursday, May 29, the interview for another term. A wife of former prefect, respectively secretary of state supported by PSD, Roxana Petcu is applying alone on the post. DIICOT prosecutor Robert Fleckhmmer, who a few years ago established a conviction for a Radio Romania journalist who had provided information on the public funds spent by her boss, is applying for the post of deputy chief inspector. The position is also targeted by the prosecutor Adrian Majeri, judicial inspector. The interviews of the three are scheduled from 16.00, at the National Institute of Magistracy.

Harvested earlier this year, the procedure regarding the choice of the new leadership of the Judicial Inspection (IJ) has entered a straight line. No one has applied against the current head of the institution, Judge Roxana Petcu. The samples consist of an interview and the evaluation of the knowledge (ie a scheduled written test for June 14).

Former magistrate of the Buftea Court between 1995 and 2011, for five years leading the court, Petcu became president of the Ilfov Tribunal, and since 2013 he has detached the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM).

From 2018 he has been active in the IJ, being considered one of the loyal inspectors of the former chief inspector Lucian Netjoror, the judge maintained according to the PSD-UDMR government by emergency ordinance.

Roxana Petcu is the wife of Adrian Petcu, former Secretary of State in the Ministry of Interior and former prefect of Ilfov between 2015 and 2017, respectively prefect of Bucharest, between 2017 and 2018, politically supported by the PSD government.

The first term of Roxana Petcu at the IJ leadership was registered in the line of her predecessor, Lucian Netijoru: multiple disciplinary actions opened against uncomfortable judges and repeated exclusions, subsequently dismantled at the supreme court.

According to the data presented on the IJ portal, in the last three years the judicial inspectors have exercised 67 disciplinary actions against the magistrates, 47 of them against the judges. Most of the deviations imputed to the magistrates are related to the delay of the cases, respectively the delay in drafting the judgments. The harshest sanction – the exclusion from the profession – was not asked for them, but for another category of magistrates: those who criticize the system.

This is the case of the military prosecutor Bogdan Pîrlog, against which the Judicial Inspection has triggered four disciplinary actions in recent years.

The prosecutor entered the viewfinder of the Judicial Inspection and after an interview for Hotnews, in which the ranking decision ordered in the 10 August file.

“This action represents an abuse from the Judicial Inspection. It is a revenge on the criticisms of me Cătălin Predoiu, Gabrielei Scutea and Giorgian Hosu and a continuation of the abusive practices of harassing the uncommon magistrates,” said the military prosecutor for HotNews.ro, after the procedure against him.

On the list of magistrates considered uncomfortable were the judges Daniela Panioglu and Nadia Guluțanu, from the Bucharest Court of Appeal, for which the Judicial Inspection has repeatedly demanded their exclusion from the judiciary, and the decisions were subsequently abolished by the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ).

Four disciplinary actions for which the IJ requested the exclusion from the system of the magistrates were changed by the Supreme Court.

According to the data presented on the IJ portal, out of the 67 disciplinary actions exercised in the mandate of Roxana Petcu, 57 were resolved. And of these, half were rejected by the SCM or the High Court. Most sanctions applied were warnings: 12 cases. In 9 of the cases, the magistrates were sanctioned with the decrease of the revenues for a certain period of time, five were temporarily suspended, two moved to other courts, and two other excluded.

Most of the sanctions – 30 – were applied for delays in drafting decisions or delaying files.

Who want to be deputy to Judicial Inspection

Two prosecutors are registered for the position of deputy chief inspector: Adrian Majeri and Robert Fleckhammer. The first is a judicial inspector, being the one who triggered the disciplinary action against the former head of the Special Section, Adina Florea.

The candidacy of Robert Fleckhammer for the position of deputy chief inspector of the IJ has been accepted by the SCM even if he is not yet judicial inspector. CSM validated the participation in evidence provided the competition for the position of judicial inspector, which is also carried out during this period.

The name of Robert Fleckhammer is related to a controversial file in which he proposed the conviction of a journalist who had provided public information. Specifically, the file in which journalist Gabriela Scraba, from Radio Romania, was charged because she spoke about the public money trip, Ovidiu Miculescu, named by PSD president of the Public Radio station.

In October 2016, Gazeta Sporturii and Tolo.ro reported on the movements of the Radio Romania chief, Ovidiu Miculescu, with air tickets, only at Business Class, which cost over 5,000 euros per destination.

During the same period, the blog of the SRR union published a report of the Court of Accounts, in which the President of the Public Radio was criticized. Miculescu made three criminal complaints at DIICOT to see who offers information from within.

Cataloged public information as a crime

The prosecutors opened a criminal case for “disclosure of secret or non -public service information”, even if the leaders of the RRA chief and the report of the Court of Accounts were public information.

Frightened by the accusations, the journalist accepted the prosecutor's proposal to conclude an agreement to recognize the guilt, establishing a sentence of 1 year and 3 months imprisonment with the postponement of the punishment.

The recognition agreement was rejected by the judges, who established that the journalist was unfairly incriminated, the respective information being public.

The same Robert Fleckhammer is the prosecutor who ranked the file that targeted Horațiu Radu (former deputy prosecutor of the General Prosecutor's Office, former government agent of Romania at CJEU and ECHR), Răzvan Păștilă (judge), Alex Costache (TVR journalist) and Cosmin Savu (journalist Pro TV). The prosecutor argued that their secret shooting was, in fact, a journalistic investigation.

In the philage action that followed the compromise of the four participants in a private meeting, a car belonging to a former Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), employed until 2018 as a civil servant within the Ministry of Finance, was involved.

Several NGOs reacted publicly and criticized Robert Fleckhammer's appointment in 2021 to lead a section of DIICOT.