Journalist Alex Nedea, short message after the Recorder documentary “Captured Justice” led to street protests
Journalist Alex Nedea from Recorder, photographed in parliament in 2022 during a hearing on the intimidation of journalists, PHOTO: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea
Alex Nedea, one of the best-known journalists of the investigative website Recorder, published a short message on Thursday morning related to the protests generated by the “Captured Justice” investigation, recalling one of the statements made in the documentary.
“Judge Andrea Chiș says in the Recorder documentary: 'You can't silence a crowd'. The crowd, last night, in a few images,” Nedea wrote, attaching several photos from the protests to the post made on her Facebook page.
HotNews.ro, which broadcast LIVE from the protest in Bucharest, showed that hundreds of people demonstrated in front of the CSM headquarters with placards and messages such as “Thieves caught, not prescribed”, “Justice, not mafia” and “Recorder are us”. A similar demonstration was held in Cluj.
The documentary that revealed serious irregularities in the legal system in Romania was seen by Wednesday evening 1.5 million times on YouTube and was broadcast by TVR. The documentary brought TVR its biggest audience since 2025, except for the presidential election debate.
On YouTube, meanwhile, he approached the two million view mark.
The irregularities reported by the documentary “Captured Justice”, commented live by a judge excluded from the judiciary by the CSM
While the documentary was broadcast on Wednesday evening by TVR, former judge Daniela Panioglu had a live intervention at Euronews Romania to discuss the way the trials were arranged and other aspects revealed by the investigation. “The evidence is there,” Panioglu said, referring to how trial panels are being changed to prolong trials and interfere with statute of limitations. Judge Daniela Panioglu was excluded from the judiciary by the CSM.
“I don't know if anything works in Romania better than corruption in the judiciary. Take all hope, abandon it all, because it's a controlled system,” said Daniela Panioglu in the Euronews Romania studio. The manner in which she was removed from court cases was highlighted in the documentary Captured Justice.
“The situation is very serious, it was passed over in silence, it suffered in silence for so long, but I think that is no longer possible in Romanian society. Justice is dysfunctional”, she added, in the Euronews show of journalist Vitali Cojocari.
Daniela Panioglu together with Alina Nadia Guluțanu judged at the Bucharest Court of Appeal the case of the former head of the Health Insurance House Lucian Duță, accused of taking a bribe of 6.3 million euros, completed with a 6-year prison sentence. Former judge Andrea Chiș, former member of the CSM also cited by Alex Nedea in his message on Thursday morning, opposed the sanctioning of the two magistrates.
Later, the Supreme Court annulled the CSM's exclusion decision.
Unprecedented decision of the Bucharest Court of Appeal after the broadcast of the Recorder documentary
The Bucharest Court of Appeal, one of the central pieces of the Recorder investigation, announced that it will hold an “extraordinary press conference” at 12:00 on Thursday to answer the accusations brought against it in the documentary. It is for the first time that the management of the Court of Appeal decides to come before the public, through the media, in such a context. The announcement was communicated to the newsrooms on Wednesday evening, when the Recorder documentary was being broadcast by TVR 1.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Bucharest Court of Appeal launched a virulent attack, in a press release, against judge Beşu Ionel Laurenţiu, one of the magistrates who spoke to the Recorder journalists without the protection of anonymity.
Among other things, the appeal court leadership even suggested that Beșu was an “undercover officer” and said that the claims made by him in the Recorder documentary grossly misrepresent the facts and are “contradicted by official documents and clear legal proceedings”.
“By its nature and its consequences, this situation generates a major impact on the proper functioning of the judicial act. The gravity of the judge's statements require that the Judicial Inspectorate, CSM, CSAT and CNSAS clarify the issues that are looming over all the elements of this case, in which sense we will address appropriate requests”, declared the Court of Appeal at the end of its statement.
