Romanian graft cases face excessive delays: experts

(BUCHAREST) - High-level graft cases in Romania have been plagued by excessive delays in court, a foot-dragging that might help the accused to escape justice, experts said Friday on world anti-corruption day.

Several important cases against businessmen, former ministers and lawmakers remain delayed sometimes for more than six years, according to a report by the Romanian news website HotNews and the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

In total, put side by side, the 27 high-profile graft cases monitored by HotNews stayed 92 years in front of the Romanian courts without a final decision, one of the authors of the study, Dan Tapalaga told reporters.

Some of the trials of former Romanian prime minister Adrian Nastase could be struck down because of the statute of limitations, the report showed.

If some judges blamed the defendants' delaying tactics, the head of the magistrates' council Horatius Dumbrava said that magistrates also bore a responsability.

"We are also partly guilty as judges when we do not succeed in being efficient when it is necessary," in such crucial cases, Dumbrava said.

"It is easy to blame the lack of money and human resources but we also have problems in the (judicial) system itself," he said.

The high court of justice, which handles most of the cases involving high-level officials, has been recently criticised after three of its judges were accused of graft.

Romania has been closely monitored by the European Commission since 2007 in order to improve its judicial system.

But there are some "signs of hope", the spokeswoman for the anti-graft prosecutor said, as "about 200 final convictions have been handed out by courts so far this year, almost twice as much as last year."

This week, the European Commissionner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom pointed out that "corruption is present in all EU Member States" and has an economic cost in the EU of around "120 billion euros per year".