Victory of Criminals over the Law

The decay into which justice has fallen is the result of the victory of criminals over the Law, well illustrated by the Recorder documentary titled "Captured Justice”. The beginning of today's lawlessness coincides with the unconstitutional removal of Laura Codruţa Kövesi from the leadership of the DNA and continues through a constant assault of criminality against the state. Since then, major cases have collapsed through procedural tricks, judicial panels are rotated without justification, deadlines are extended until prescription takes effect, and the law is pushed into a position of submission to the interest networks that control the system.

On July 9, 2018, Romania lost not only a chief prosecutor, but the architecture of an institution that, for a decade, had succeeded in instilling fear among those accustomed to stealing under the legitimacy of power.

The dismissal of Laura Codruţa Kövesi - politically decided, legally forced, and imposed through a highly controversial ruling of the Constitutional Court - marked the official signal that anti-corruption could be stopped, reshaped, or dismantled according to the interests of the moment.

From that point on, the degradation of justice is no longer an accident but a strategy. A strategy that can be seen, measured, and demonstrated through the chronology of cases presented in the "Captured Justice” documentary, where the disintegration of the system appears not as a collection of individual failures, but as a mechanism.

Chronology of Degradation

• 2014-2015: The "Drumul Taberei” Case (Metrorex)

The case regarding the delays and the exploded costs of the M5 metro line begins at a fast pace within the DNA. After 2018, it enters paralysis: prosecutors changed, expert reports reversed, repeated adjournments. Today, the acts are nearly prescribed. The system has neither energy nor will.

• 2015-2016: The ANRP Case

A massive file, with huge damages and heavy first-instance convictions. On appeal, after 2018, everything deflates: panels changed, procedures restarted, massive acquittals driven by Constitutional Court rulings on prescription. A textbook case of how justice gives up on punishing wrongdoing.

• 2017: Legislative Amendments

The explicit erosion of the DNA begins: procedural changes, redefinition of competencies, public attacks on prosecutors. Massive street protests have no effect.

• 2017-2018: The Ionel Arsene Case

Sentenced to more than eight years at first instance, Arsene enters a procedural carousel on appeal: delays, new panels, stalling. The final ruling reduces his sentence, and the defendant leaves the country before the decision. Justice becomes optional.

• 2018: Constitutional Court Decisions on Prescription

This is the key moment that breaks the system: judges explain in the documentary how the lack of a clear legal basis for interrupting prescription led to collapse. Thousands of cases enter the grey zone, and criminals understand the message: time becomes a weapon.

• 2019-2021: The Elena Udrea Case

A symbol of anti-corruption becomes a symbol of its downfall. Convicted, escaped, brought back, serving a reduced sentence, Udrea moves easily through a weakened system whose related cases disintegrate.

• 2020-2022: The Cătălin Cherecheş Case

A mayor convicted but protected by a system that perforates its own mechanisms: delayed deadlines, rotating panels. He flees before sentencing. He is caught in Germany. Another victory of the criminal over the state.

• 2021-2022: The Peak of Prescription

The Constitutional Court finalizes the theoretical framework of the collapse: prescription interruption no longer functions, and the retroactivity of interpretations unleashes a wave of freed defendants. Justice becomes a system that cancels its own effectiveness.

• 2022: The Sorin Oprescu Case

Sentenced to more than ten years, the former mayor escapes to Greece, from where he cannot be extradited. Not because there's no law, but because the mechanisms are too weak to enforce it.

• 2022-2023: Mass Prescription

Ministers, MPs, dignitaries, agency heads walk free. The list shown in the documentary is the X-ray of an institutional collapse.

• 2023-2024: Reaction of Magistrates

Some have had enough: judges speak publicly about pressures, unnatural rotations, CSM's lack of responsibility. Others admit anonymously that "justice no longer has mechanisms to punish corruption.”

• 2024: Reaction of Society

The documentary triggers protests. People demand justice. The state responds with sterile statements.

"Captured Justice” is not a film. It is the autopsy report of a system that, after 2018, ceased to exercise its function. Every case in the chronology shows the same pattern: criminals gain ground, the law retreats, institutions allow themselves to be reshaped.

The rotting of justice is not an accident, but a process. A process that began when anti-corruption was left without protection, without architecture, without a gravitational center.

In the face of this reality, the question is no longer who is to blame, but whether the Romanian state still has the strength to recover what it has lost.

For some, the issue is formulated simply, in the following terms:

"Can Nicuşor Dan revitalize what Klaus Iohannis has crumpled and thrown in the trash?”

There is a rumor circulating that the origin of the documentary Recorder was General Florian Coldea, the former first deputy head of the SRI, who was put on trial for influence peddling (but this does not disprove the truth of what is shown in the documentary). He and Laura Codruţa Kovesi formed the so-called "binome", being accused of using their positions in combating corruption in a manner inconsistent with the principles of the rule of law. Recently, Nicuşor Dan has shown signs that he would like to revive the "binome" formula, resuming the Protocol of Collaboration between the DNA and the SRI.