What are the deputies in the subcommittee looking into the criminal cases against Adrian Nastase and Miron Mitrea doing? Filthy things, just like we imagind the very minute the subcommittee was established. Given their visible wish to help Miron Mitrea get away with it, these deputies aren't even patient enough to reach a final decision on the case. Instead of taking their time, they have expressed a view too early, claiming the case is poorly grounded, made up stuff. They are saying they will ask proscutors for mandates to intercept phone calls. They are saying it is boring. As for Miron Mitrea, he is praying that there will be consent to the opening of criminal inquiry against him so that he can prove his innocence and the abuses committed by the DNA (National Anti-Corruption Department). The deputies in this subcommittee have slowly and insolently turned into accusers agaist the the DNA and lawyers of Miron Mitrea. But they don't get wages to defend, accuse or deliberate on the latter, just as they are not employed to investigate on the DNA and reach verdicts. Any statement on the nature of the evidence in the case is obviously an attempt to interfere in Justice matters, to influence magistrates. This unexpected state of things is due to our sly Constitutional Court, which is asking deputies and senators to consent to the opening of criminal investigations against the members of the two Chambers. But instead of being a merely procedural consent, it has turned into a juridical one. Deputies express opinion on the innocence or guilt of a deputy before the start of criminal investigations on which they set conditions. So together with the accused they place themselves above prosecutors, judges and the other citizens of Romania. Tremendous defiance! Ordinary people don't get a subcommittee to protect their interests in front of prosecutors. Ordinary people go straight to the Prosecutor's Office and some get themselves lawyers. The MPs have become their own lawyers and judges who get paid with the money we pay. Romanian politicians have created a parallel Justice system, which is only theirs. They have done it by misinterpreting the concept of immunity, always moulding it on the criminal and political interests they pursue at a certain moment. It is witch justice of the Harry Potter kind. It has effected into a web of ceaselessly changing norms, interpreted , overinterpreted and misinterpreted, depending on their intellectual skills and needs. The Constitution, the Constitutional Court's decisions, the special laws, the regulation for the Parliament's Chamber have been taking great interest in elaborating a frame very convenient to the criminal MPs and ministers. What matters is that their own buddies get away with not, but not their buddies! Or the latter too, but it depends on each and every case! The rewriting of immunity laws resembles that ceaseless rewriting of history described by George Orwell in his gloomy "1984". Theoretically speaking, the function of the subjective filters recently placed between criminals and Justice is to detect possibly false accusations emerging from political vendettas, enmity and plots against the poor honest politicians. Parliamentary and presidential committees and subcommittees who agree or disgaree to the opening of criminal inquiries are immoral political entities, taking themselves for juridical and moral entities. It is not only state officials, but also any citizen who may be complained against, charged and sued, although unfairly. Suppose policemen and prosecutors are unfair and corrupt, the citizen gets to face the court in the end. If the judges are corrupt too, the citizen may address the Superior Council of Magistracy, the parliamentary committees against abuse, the European Court of Human Rights. Citizens can pay lawyers, write complaints, take pains and waste time on it. But it doesn't go for our politicians. They have spared themselves of it, but without asking for our opinions. Those unlucky enough to reach the DNA at a politically unfavorable time get away with it, anyway. Very seldom do they get sued. Remember that sketch, played by our famous comedian Constantin Tanase: "A cousin of mine, shiny and sly,/ Fools all judges, God knows why./ Rules and norms, they fade away,/ So the law too goes astray." But they are all complaining about being victims of political persecution, still they continue to mind their business. Political influence over Justice is no news. It has taken disguised forms under all the governments ruling Romania after 1989. The Chamber of Deputies is now proceeding to something very serious due to the activity of this subcommittee handling Miron Mitrea and Adrian Nastase: deputies are legislating the parliamentary interference in Justice.

Rasvan MOLDOVEANU