Indications of a set-up to unlawfully convict Mr. Bivolaru 7th June 2012

The Romanian Supreme Court’s decision to re-judge the MISA case is unlawful and seems designed for a fast conviction.

On 12 April 2012 the High Court for Cassation and Justice of Romania came with an earth-breaking decision during what was supposed to be the last phase of the famously disputed judicial case in Romania. The previous two verdicts, of the Trial Court and of the Court of Appeals, which were fully acquitting the defendant, Gregorian Bivolaru, founder of a Yoga movement, were both annulled by the High Court and set for a retrial in the court of last resort, by the same judges who decided upon this unlawful annulment.
In its haste to cover the lies of the prosecutors who built the case 8 years ago against the yoga school MISA, the court forgot itself to act according to the law. Such, it didn't release the motivation of the decision within the legal term of 20 days, and when it did, after 42 days (1 day before the date of retrial) it only revealed the groundlessness of the decision.

In brief, the motivation given by the High Court for Cassation and Justice dismissed declarations of a key witness, proving the innocence of Gregorian Bivolaru, and instead took into consideration transcripts of phone tapings, which were clearly proven as illegal by the previous courts. Even the legal ground invoked by the High Court to explain this manoeuvre is illegal. According to the Romanian Penal Procedure Code, the point 172 from art. 3859 cannot be invoked ex officio by the court, but that didn’t hinder the judges in their attempt to bend the law.   
The lawyer of the defendant declared about hearing of May 24th : 

"The short interval given until the next hearing of this case (at first 7 days and modified to 14 days at my request, because I could not be present on June 1st), while all files in the same session of court were granted reasonable time, shows the court’s haste to convict GB. This period of time until the next hearing makes us unable to mount an effective defense, given that they motivated their decision of cassation and retrial only two days before the hearing and from their statement does not result what is to happen at the next hearing, although the court had a legal obligation to clarify this."

The decision of the court on 12 April was preceded by much concern from the European Parliament with members of all the groups contacting the Romanian government regarding the case. Also notable is the fact that in 2005 the defendant received political asylum in Sweden, due to continuous persecutions is protected by Swedish asylum since 2005 from prosecution. Regarding the case, the dissident and founder of APADOR-CH, the Romanian Helsinki Committee states that “The democracy and rule of law is not trustworthy in Romania until the MISA case is solved and the victims compensated”.

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