Romania’s former President Traian Basescu launched an unprecedented attack on justice and criticized the high number of preventive arrests made by the anticorruption prosecutors and approved by the High Court.

He said that the preventive arrests are breaking human rights norms and that the individuals who are displayed handcuffed on TV are crushed like flies under the weight of all the state institutions that are against him.

“I didn’t fight for this kind of justice and this didn’t’ happen until two months before the end of my mandate,” Basescu said on a talk show hosted by B1 TV, on Monday evening.

One of the people arrested after Basescu ended his mandate was former tourism minister Elena Udrea, one of the former president’s closest collaborators. However, Basescu said that he wasn’t talking about Udrea’s case but about all the free people that have been “tortured” with preventive arrest in recent months.

“This is a type of justice that’s made under formidable pressure. Think of a man who was held to be taken to the High Court for arrest the next day. What happens immediately? A whole wave of information and details about his case floods the media. This is an unfair way to prepare his arrest. It’s unfair to do this to a free man who hasn't been condemned for anything yet,” Basescu explained.

He added that prosecutors are responsible for the arrest hysteria and for spreading case information in the media. He also said that prosecutors aren’t looking for substantial evidence as much as they used to and that they rely more on denunciations.

“Do you know how I see a man taken to court to be arrested? Like a fly that has all the weight of state institutions upon it. I’ve heard the High Court’s president say that the court will be a partner for the National Anticorruption Directorate. Really? What chance does a suspect have when he goes to court knowing that the High Court is DNA’s partner? He has no chance.”

Basescu added that this way of making justice may lead to wrongful sentences and that arrests made to get people to confess to the accusations are breaking human rights norms.

He admitted that he named some of the justice chiefs he now criticizes, but he said that during his mandates the abuses didn’t happen.

The High Court’s president Livia Stanciu said that she wouldn’t let herself intimidated by any politician’s reactions. “These statements from a former president only disqualify us as a country and affect our credibility in front of other states,” Stanciu said. She added that politicians and commentators should refrain from making irresponsible allegations about the magistrates’ activity.

editor@romania-insider.com