PG Lazar says manipulation of public opinion is frequently used to destabilise prosecutors' activity

The manipulation of the public opinion is frequently used to destabilise the proscutors' activity, and the Public Prosecution Service (MP) permanently acted in a transparent manner, in the spirit of finding the truth, Romania's Prosecutor General Augustin Lazar stated.

He labeled the current period as "being a difficult one for Romania's justice and the rule of law," and released to the public the correspondence with the Justice Ministry and the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM).

"It's a context in which the manipulation of the public opinion is frequently used as an instrument to destabilise the activity of prosecutors. My statement aims to establish the truth regarding an extremely debated topic - that of the collaboration protocols with the SRI [the Romanian Intelligence Service]. The Public Prosecution Service has the mission to provide the truth based on evidence. (...) I am releasing the correspondence with the Justice Ministry and the CSM to the public, the truth doesn't have to bother anyone, it is singular. From this correspondence it clearly results that the Public Prosecution Service permanently acted in a transparent manner, by informing the CSM and the Justice Ministry in respect to all the demarches initiated with regards to the protocols; consistently, for declassifying the protocols of December 2016, with the first demarche on 13 March 2017, in a legal framework which represented an institutional way of working for Romania. See in this regard the similar protocols concluded by the SRI with the Judicial Inspectorate, with the CSM, the High Court and other institutions of the Romanian state," Lazar told a news conference.

According to him, all the protocols concluded by the SRI have been disclosed by the parties, being concluded in a legal framework as a general institutional form of work in Romania at the time of their conclusion, "and then dismantled promptly and without effect," in the context of suspicions which emerged in the public space. AGERPRES (RO - author: Catalina Matei, editor: Florin MarinM; EN - author: Rodica State, editor: Adina Panaitescu)