ROMANIA
Human
Rights Without Frontiers
which
monitored the work of the
Supreme Court in Bucharest in
May calls upon the European
Commission to check the
legality of this controversial
trial and publish its opinion
in the next reporton
Romania's progress under the
Co-operation and
Verification Mechanism.
On two
occasions in the last 12
months, the European
Commission already expressed
its concerns about the lack of
respect for the independence
of the judiciary.
HRWF (17.06.2013) -
After nine years of
controversial legal proceedings,
Gregorian Bivolaru, famous
political dissident imprisoned
three times under Ceausescu
regime and founder of the
largest yoga movement in
Romania, was sentenced on 14
June 2013 by the Romanian
Supreme Court to six years in
prison. He was convicted for
sexual relations with a minor.
The charge was
formulated in result of an
unprecedented police attack on
18 March 2004 when 300 masked
and heavily armed policemen
raided 16 private homes of yoga
practitioners.
The concerned minor
(17 years ½) was then
interrogated for 13 hours and
forced to write a statement that
was misused as a complaint.
Despite the fact that with the
help of a lawyer she retracted
her statement the next morning,
the case was channelled through
irreversible judicial
proceedings.
Her request was
denied and she was dragged
through courts for nine years,
instrumentalized as a victim in
the trial against Bivolaru, with
whom she continuously denied
having sexual relations.
In the last trial
session on 14 June 2013 she
tried once again to step out of
the case by filing one more
affidavit stating she never had
sexual relations to Bivolaru,
was never seduced or trafficked
by him and that she does not
have any complaints against him.
The judge harshly refused the
declaration.
Bivolaru
declared not-guilty in 2010
and 2011
On 23rd
April 2010, after numerous
judicial proceedings, the
president of the panel of judges
of Sibiu Tribunal (Criminal
Department), Daniela Czika,
pronounced a not guilty decision
for Gregorian Bivolaru on all
the charges brought against him:
sexual intercourse with a minor,
human trafficking and
exploitation. The
Prosecutor's Office appealed the
decision but on 14th
March 2011, the Court of Appeal
of Alba Iulia rejected "as
ungrounded the appeal formulated
by the Prosecutor's Office
attached to the Sibiu Tribunal
against criminal sentence no. 86
of 04.23.2010 given by Sibiu
tribunal - Criminal Section, in
file no. 405/85/2005".
The High
Court for Cassation and
Justice orders a re-trial in
2012
On 12th
April 2012, the High Court for
Cassation and Justice dismissed
the decision of the Sibiu
Tribunal and the Alba Iulia
Court and ordered a retrial on
the merits of the trial of
judges Ionut Matei, Ioana Bogdan
and Cristina Rotaru. Nine years
after the raid, the case is
still on-going.
On 9th
May 2013, the Supreme Court in
Bucharest held a new hearing in
the lawsuit against Gregorian
Bivolaru who got the status of
political asylum in Sweden in
2005. The lawyers of Bivolaru
then repeated their urgent
request that their client be
heard by a Romanian rogatory
commission in Sweden where the
Supreme Court in Stockholm had
refused to extradite him and had
granted him political asylum. HRWF
Int'l was present at that
hearing which was officially
announced as dealing with the
charge of trafficking and not
sexual intercourse with a minor.
Five weeks later,
the Supreme Court failed to wait
for the green light of
Stockholm, accusing the Swedish
authorities of "superficiality
and lack of seriousness" and
hurriedly came to a final
decision: 6 years in prison.
The
judiciary in Romania under
surveillance of the European
Commission
In July
2012, the European Commission
published its regular report on
Romania's progress under the
Co-operation and Verification
Mechanism. At that time
important questions were raised
about the rule of law and the
independence of the judiciary in
Romania. The EU's executive
commission said it was
particularly concerned by
"manipulations which affect
institutions and members of the
judiciary and have a serious
impact on society as a whole."
The
Commission then made a number of
recommendations to Romania and
also indicated that it would
make a report on how its
recommendations had been
followed up six months later.
In the
follow up report adopted on 30th
January 2013, the Commission
found that Romania had
implemented several but not all
of its recommendations.
The
Commission stressed again that
the lack of respect for the
independence of the judiciary
and the instability faced by
judicial institutions remain a
source of concern.
The next
report is in preparation.
HRWF
Int'l
will soon publish
the report of its fact-finding
mission to Romania from 8 to
16 May 2013. Those interested
in this report can contact
HRWF Int'l by sending an email
to international.secretariat.brussels@hrwf.net
