The editorial office of Lumea Justitiei (www.luju.ro) is the first to publish the English version of the abusive Secret Protocol – labeled as “strictly classified” – signed during summer of 2009 by the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) represented by George Maior – currently the Ambassador or Romania in the USA), the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ) represented by judge Nicolae Popa – currently retired, he publicly denies the fact that the signature on this document is his), and the Prosecutor’s Office of the High Court of Cassation and Justice (PICCJ) represented by Laura Codruta Kovesi – recently removed from office as Chief Prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate due to catastrophic management).

We’re publishing the document so that foreign officials can grasp the hidden truth of this protocol, which has severely damaged Romania’s justice-related proceedings. The protocol hasn’t once been mentioned in the monitoring reports of the European Union’s Mechanism for Cooperation and Supervision.

Called “Collaboration protocol for fulfilling tasks that pertain to national security”, the illegal document generated a secret kind of justice between 2009 and 2018 (when it was declassified); the sort of justice which citizens and people on trial had no idea about. The very idea of a contract establishing collaboration between an intelligence service and prosecutors/judges is strictly forbidden by Art. 7 of the 303/2004 law, which clearly states that magistrates cannot be in service or collaborate with intelligence services (not even in an undercover capacity) and such actions are punished by being removed from office. The secret contract called “Cooperation Protocol” is exactly that: a collaboration that is forbidden by law.

Also according to Romanian law, intelligence services can’t contribute to arraignments or have any sort of activity pertaining to something other than national security. But according to what’s stipulated in this protocol, it becomes clear that the SRI – ICCJ – PICCJ collaboration is expanded through Art. 2 and 3 of the protocol to cover actions of limiting basic human rights and freedoms through actions pertaining to fulfilling responsibilities that fall upon the signing parties according to laws that regulate their activity – so covering any transgression that must be addressed by the prosecutor’s office. It’s also clearly mentioned that there are ongoing strategies, actions, and joint programs in effect for the signing parties; also that there’s mutual access to data and information given to any signing party based on a “need to know” basis (including access for the intelligence services to the content of penal case files).

The fact of the matter is that the protocol is highly illegal because according to the Constitution anything pertaining to Human Rights can only be regulated by laws emitted by the Romanian Parliament as sole legislative authority of the country; but also because the 303/2004 law forbids collaboration between magistrates and intelligence services, collaboration punishable by removal from office of the prosecutor or judge who commits such actions. In fact, according to Art. 7 of the 303/2004 law, it is mandatory for every magistrate to make a yearly statutory statement through which they certify the fact that they are not collaborators of intelligence services.

The veracity of these statutory statements is established by the Supreme Council of National Defense, which has never fulfilled this role. SRI’s current director, Eduard Hellvig, admitted publicly on February 25 2016 – while giving a speech at a bilateral meeting of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) – that there have been hundreds of DNA prosecutor / SRI officer mixed teams that have worked on cases including crimes of corruption, which do not pertain to national security.

Art. 6 of the European Convention for Human Rights (CEDO), in regard to the right to a fair trial, states that: “In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.”

It’s precisely this article, which Romania is obligated to follow, that the SRI-ICCJ-PICCJ protocol goes against; because when the judge is in contact with the prosecutor and intelligence services (which are forbidden by law to work on documents of arrangement), defendants have no chance at a fair and impartial trial by an independent tribunal since through the Protocol – which acts as a contract – judges are part of joint actions and strategies in penal cases along with the prosecutors and SRI officers, all of them being accomplices.

The lack of an independent tribunal turns into mistrial all trials presided by judges that have worked, based on the Procol, with PICCJ and SRI, because they are in breach of Art. 6 of CEDO and similar national legislative norms. Who is going to take responsibility for signing this illegal protocol and for the massive consequences it will generate in the future regarding cases already closed or that are ongoing, which are in serious breach of Human Rights and have sent to jail many innocents?

Ever since spring of 2018 and up until now, dozens of citizens have lodges penal complaints at the PICCJ against those who signed this protocol and other similar ones (there is another one that is particularly grievous, also signed in 2009 by SRI and PICCJ). The case has yet to be resolved, becoming obvious that PICCJ itself, as party that signed the protocol, cannot be an objective and impartial prosecutor.

On June 24 2018, the editorial office of “Lumea Justitiei” has lodged a complaint with the Superior Council of Magistracy (the institution which guarantees the independence of justice), in which we requested they take note of the violation of the independence of justice through the protocols that SRI signed, and that measures would be taken in order to identify the magistrates that have worked in mixed protocol teams in order to remove them from office and revise the trials affected by these illegal collaborations. In its reply to our editorial office, CSM stated:

“As a result of your complaint, registered at the Superior Council of Magistracy with the nr. 1/13251/25.06.2018, we inform you that it will be analyzed together with the research regarding the protocols with intelligence services/information-gathering structures.

We also inform you that during the April 4 and 19 2018 sessions, the Council has launched an ample process of clarifying the matter of how the protocols signed between SRI and institutions from the judicial system were applied.”

Read the full content of the Protocol signed by SRI-ICCJ-PICCJ in the summer of 2009:

* Read here the romanian version of this article