The state of judicial independence in Romania has come into the spotlight following one of the biggest corruption scandals in the country’s history and two weeks of mass protests in Bucharest calling for judicial reform, with tens of thousands taking to the streets.
Why are Romanians taking to the streets?
The demonstrations were sparked by a 2-hour documentary entitled “Captured Justice” (Justiție capturată), which aired on the news outlet Recorder this month, garnering over 5 million views on YouTube. The documentary, supported by interviews with judges, prosecutors and the former director of the anti-corruption agency, details how major corruption cases were concealed with impunity for the perpetrators. It shows how politically appointed judges used legal loopholes, such as excessive interception warrants on security grounds, to interfere with state prosecution, put embezzlement cases aside, and arrange acquittals.
One prominent example is the case of former Bucharest district mayor Marian Vanghelie, who was charged with abuse of office, bribery, and money laundering. After initially being sentenced to 11 years, proceedings were delayed indefinitely until 2025, when all charges were dropped against him since the statute of limitations had expired.
Further, the documentary shows how judges and prosecutors who speak out are often silenced and face disciplinary action.
Along with the protests in Bucharest and several other cities, as well as the media reports, pressure on the Romanian government mounts through an open letter, signed by several hundred judicial workers, calling out corruption and explaining their experiences of being thwarted and punished by their superiors if they called out corrupt behavior.
How has the government under President Nicusor Dan reacted?
In a Facebook post, Romania’s sitting liberal pro-Europe president Nicusor Dan acknowledged the corruption scandal, stating, “When 200 magistrates say that there is an integrity issue in the justice system, things get very serious.” In the post, he called for the public to share any material or evidence relevant to the issue and announced that on December 22, a public discussion with judges and prosecutors will be held. The date has high symbolic value in Romania, as it marks the anniversary of the end of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s rule in 1989.
The discussion is highly anticipated as the Bucharest Court of Appeal, responsible for the handling of the case, held its first-ever press conference this month. Presiding judge Liana Arsenie intended to defend herself against accusations in the report, but another judge confirmed them in the very same interview.
President Dan, who beat his far-right, pro-Russian opponent at the national elections in 2025 amid unfounded claims that the elections were rigged through foreign interference, made it a campaign point to reform the Romanian judiciary.
How did the corruption issue with Romania’s judiciary begin?
Romania has longstanding issues with corruption in the judiciary. Since 2005, the National Anti-corruption Bureau (DNA) has addressed internal corruption and helped Romania integrate into NATO and the EU. After Romania became an EU member state in 2007 alongside Bulgaria, Brussels put a monitoring system (Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) in place because Romania’s judicial system was still seen as unfit for EU standards.
Romania’s January 2017 Ordinance 13 (OUG 13) sparked the country’s then-largest post-communist protests, leading to its swift repeal just weeks later. The ordinance was a controversial decree that sought to decriminalize certain corruption offenses, notably by introducing a high financial threshold for prosecuting abuse of office.
In 2022, the DNA finished the most cases in its history, and several high-profile politicians were convicted as a consequence. Soon after, in 2024, the European Commission lifted Romania’s CVM. Most of the backward trends decried in the documentary, however, happened following the December snap-elections of 2020, after which the country has seen multiple administration handovers between the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL).
Laura Codruta Coves, European Chief Prosecutor and former head of Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), reacted in “shock” to the recent developments, condemning the “tactics of intimidation, silencing, manipulation, disinformation” that the heads of the justice system turned to after the documentary. Coves added, “I have the feeling that this is something systemic. I cannot say whether it is a criminal group.”
