The significance of Augustin Lazar’s dismissal. Plus a useless president

The 20 indictments recited Wednesday evening by the Justice Minister Tudorel Toader, uttered between two days of leave, against the General Prosecutor, are not just an affront to the prosecutor’s career and to every honest prosecutor in Romania. Augustin Lazar’s revocation is, above all, a ritual execution, a declaration of war against that part of the judiciary that still rejects political co-existence. Through this shift of force, the Government shows utmost contempt for the concerns expressed by the Venice Commission and the Brussels officials, who spoke of the risk that the judiciary, a pillar essential to the rule of law, would come under political control.

It is therefore not a coincidence that among the reasons for the revocation we find something related to the investigation of the violence committed by the gendarmes against the peaceful protesters at the August 10th rally. The message is clear to all magistrates: whoever touches this sensitive power file will be beheaded. This was the message used by the Judicial Inspectorate who lays siege to those prosecuting the Gendarmerie, while also looking for any paper that could be added to the indictment drawn up by the Minister of Justice against the General Prosecutor.

Beyond the symbolic messages, Augustin Lazar’s revocation will have exceptionally serious concrete effects. For the first time since the SDP’s inauguration in 2012, the path of a full power take-over in the State open up. The risk of a major imbalance in society is now higher than ever and can hardly be avoided. I saw the proposal of the Minister of Justice for DNA, someone who said about herself, on the spot, that she was not “an independent prosecutor”.

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We can therefore imagine hat type of individual he would be proposing to the General Prosecutor position : an unscrupulous executor of orders, someone willing to file complaints against the political SDP-ALDE opponents, an instrument of political struggle in the hands of power. They would not only be there to close files, but to open new, dedicated ones, because Dragnea and Tariceanu, their SDP and ALDE clients, will want revenge for years of investigations and convictions considered humiliating.

In the past year, prosecutor panels, prosecutors, and judges, have been operating as the last retreat in a country led by convicted individuals and individuals subject to criminal investigations, determined to replace European-style democracy with a sort of dictatorship of the thieves, where lawlessness is raised to a virtue.

Only the judiciary, with all its sins, has managed to somehow ensure a minimal democratic balance and temper the temptation of excess power. Now, the SDP – ALDE majority is on the brink of taking full control of the judiciary through a suite of changes to the laws of justice and criminal codes, but also by purging the system of non-obedient prosecutors. They initially attempted a maskedapproach in the form of anticipated retirements, but more recently they went directly to the threat of the „lustration of magistrates” who would have signed and applied the “secret protocols”. The confiscation of a rhetoric specific to political dissidence, to the victims of totalitarian regimes is a new insult to the memory of the true martyrs who have died in communist prisons.

The Propaganda of Power tried to minimize the change of one man, knowing full well, this is not at stake. Taking over the position of General Prosecutor is a decisive step towards access to total state power. Only the secret services remain, but they are no longer an immediate goal if SDP and ALDE succeed in taking control of prosecutors and judges. Against the latter, the power will act with two lethal weapons: the Judicial Inspectorate and the Special Investigation Section for the crimes committed by magistrates.

Never has the danger of collapse of the democratic state been greater than today. Key institutions wavered under the SDP and ALDE attacks, but they have not altogether given up. Now, however, the risk of democracy’s disintegration is imminent.

Only one man could do something, and even that, without a guarantee of success. President Klaus Iohannis has two options now: either he goes on sleeping on the job, and accepts the disaster without resistance, or he wakes up and plays everything with his mandate on the table at the 12th hour. The third way is gone. And what if he gets suspended? What does it matter if he ends a year earlier with a mandate he has contributed to make devoid of any power?

We have no use for a president who grows more useless by the day, is increasingly disconnected from reality, and fallen into irrelevance. A president praised by the opponents of democracy is more of a nuisance than anything else. We have no use for a relaxed tourist under the guise of a head of state who is fighting for justice and the rule of law only when he finally decides to interrupt his long leave and silence.

Unfortunately, the signs do not bode well for the president. Klaus Iohannis has cascaded into the most uninspired gestures in his presidential career so far, after the unfortunate positioning in Strasbourg, where he publicly opposed the resolution on Romania, an attitude lauded only by the enemies of democracy, Sputnik and Antena3. How can you play the mediator’s role on justice and the judiciary on the day when the justice minister goes up with the Panzer over prosecutors? What is there to be discussed with political leaders who have elevated the destruction of the judiciary to the rank of state policy?

I do not see how President Klaus Iohannis can save his career if he signs up to this request for revocation without trying anything. But what else can be done, after the decision of the Constitutional Court in the Kovesi case? According to the decision, President Klaus Iohannis will have to sign just like a notary the request to dismiss General Prosecutor Augustin Lazar, sent by Justice Minister Tudorel Toader.

He might, for example, denounce the arbitrariness of the indictments, condemn the General Prosecutor’s political execution, and warn the public about the gravity of the moment. After all, the president has must find solutions, ranging from a referendum on the judiciary, to any other legal action that can limit the extent of the disaster. We are here also because of his disengagement from the position of president.