If yesterday we were upset that Piedone announced his friend, a hotel politician, that he was going to come in control, today we are again revolted that the former chief of consumer protection was publicly humiliated. After all, does anyone have to win about the leakage of “incendiary / bomb information” about Piedone's family life? Justice in no case.
Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union establishes the essential values on which the EU is based. “Respect for human dignity” is the first on the list. Probably not by chance.
Cristian Popescu Piedone sent a message on his own Facebook page on Thursday morning in which he accused of being violated “the right to dignity, private life and the right to be human.”
The message comes after several news sites (Hotnews are not among them) have published stenograms from the DNA file of some calls in which Piedone is arguing with his wife-a matter that strictly belong to the private life of the two and which has absolutely no connection with the facts for which the former dignitary is investigated.
Probably many might say, “Well, Piedone likes the show anyway, he likes to humiliate people, to film them, to put them on the Internet, now to see what it is.” Maybe the employees of the malls controlled by the former head of ANPC may feel vindictive.
But it is not about revenge here.
How to turn DNA on Piedone into a victim
DNA has transmitted today in a statement that it is not involved in the disclosure in the public space of the respective stenograms. The head of the institution, Marius Voineag, gave more details to Digi24. He explained that the records of the discussions between the accused and his wife were made “to prove that Mr. Piedone frequently used his driver's phone, for both professional and personal calls.” On the other hand, Voineag “rejects the way these calls reached the public space and were presented, affecting the right to private life of the suspect.”
To make a summary: DNA admits that he recorded on Piedone while talking to his wife exclusively personal problems, but he did it to support his probative material. On the other hand, he does not know how the respective calls arrived in the public space.
The Superior Council of Magistracy should do an investigation and I do not think it will be so complicated to find out who drained the information in the public space. Fortunately, there are not many variants: either the prosecutors who dealt with the case, the judicial police or the technical team that made the registration, or Piedone and his lawyers. Maybe someone escaped me, though I doubt it.
The scandal also awakened some politicians: USR announced that it will notify the SCM, and the party president, Dominic Fritz, says that “the rule of law does not defend itself with channels from files” on sources “.
Now no matter who has elapsed in public, more effects matter. Piedone is entitled to address the courts in Romania and even to the ECHR on the grounds that his right to private life is violated. Or that he has no part of a fair trial. I don't know what chances will have, but I'm sure his lawyers are now working to make a case.
In the public space, there is already more talk about the “victim” Piedone, than about the head of ANPC who arranged controls after which the business of friends will go well. And the DNA image does not come out very well after such a joke.
Without falling the victim of the conspiracy, we can ask ourselves: what did those who have drained those stenograms in public? If they wanted to humiliate Piedone, it seems that the effect was exactly the opposite.
A scene of ten years ago, unlikely in any democratic country
I remember that many years ago, during Traian Basescu's period, I attended an episode that gives me creeps. While I was in a larger group of journalists, a colleague who worked on justice approached another journalist who was in the economy and said in the big mouth: “I found you in the corruption file of Minister X. It was also a conversation with you, you asked for something, I do not know what, that I did not finish.”
Everyone froze and I can't say what amazed face the colleague had “caught in fact”. After a few minutes of shock and horror, the journalist from Economic responded shyly and scared: “I called him to ask him for some information, what could I ask?”.
The atmosphere was relaxed, everyone laughed at the joke made by the colleague on justice and the fallen face of the Economic. Now, however, looking back, I think there was nothing to laugh at this scene, extremely probable in any press editorial in a democratic country.
What had happened? The respective minister had been intercepted by the prosecutors who investigated him in a corruption file and then, as he proceeded, put all the stenograms of the discussions, whether they were related to the facts or not. Subsequently, of course “on sources”, the discussions reached the journalists who kept in touch with the prosecutors and published articles from their investigations.
The minister in question was sentenced to prison, but many other politicians from that period, which through the stenograms we found a lot of private information, were paid.
I do not know how the criminal story with Piedone will end, but I think it would have been much better if we did not find out the details of its private life.
