Justice Minister Mona Pivniceru expressed her satisfaction with the conclusions of the CVM report and announced that she will take measures in relation to the only criticism that the Commission brought to the ministry, namely the fact that a wide selection pool was not ensured when it came to the nominations for the offices of head of the High Court of Justice (ICCJ) and of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA). Pivniceru stated on Wednesday evening, during a conference held after the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) report was published, that she is pleased with its conclusions concerning the activity of the Justice Ministry. Referring to the only criticism included in the report, according to which “a wide selection pool was not ensured” when it came to the selection of the proposed chief prosecutors of the DNA and the ICCJ, the official pointed out that the document did not criticize the essence of the selection procedure, nor its legality, fairness and transparency. In the same context, Pivniceru pointed out that in order to select the candidates for the ICCJ and DNA she will cooperate with the general assembly of the two institutions’ prosecutor’s offices, with their leadership councils and with the chief prosecutors of these units, in order for persons that have professional skills, morality and vision in the anticorruption fight to be proposed as persons capable of holding those offices. The Justice Minister pointed out that she will “contact all these persons” and will “ask them to sign up for this procedure.” The official pointed out that “the only thing criticized or somewhat given a negative connotation in this report is the fact that a wide selection pool was not ensured.” Pivniceru added that she will soon restart the procedure on the selection of chief prosecutors of the PICCJ and DNA because she is pressured for time. Asked whether the new chief prosecutors will be appointed by the time Daniel Morar’s (interim leader of the High Court’s prosecutor’s office) delegation expires, the minister pointed out that “the procedure is not linked to the existence of a person in office at one point.”
