European chief prosecutor Kovesi on ECHR ruling:It's a victory of those who supported justice in recent years

European prosecutor-in-chief Laura Codruta Kovesi has stated on Tuesday that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling regarding her removal from the office of prosecutor-in-chief of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) "represents a victory of all those who have supported justice in recent years years." "I am content for starting this demarche in which I believed very much, a demarche which focused more on a matter of principle related to the independence of the judiciary, the independence of prosecutors and judges, and I feel that it is a victory, not just a personal victory, it is a victory of the justice system and it is a victory of all those who have supported justice in recent years," Kovesi told Europa FM radio station. Laura-Codruta Kovesi won on Tuesday at the European Court of Human Rights the trial by which she challenged the decision that had her removed from the office of prosecutor-in-chief of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), a press release of the institution based in Strasbourg informs. According to the ECHR, Romania violated Kovesi's rights by removing her from office before the end of her term. According to the ECHR ruling, there had been no way for the applicant to bring a claim in court against her dismissal as such proceedings would only have been able to examine the formal aspects of the presidential decree for her removal and not her substantive argument that she had been incorrectly removed for criticising the legislative changes in corruption law. Furthermore, the ECHR also found that her right to freedom of expression had been violated because she had been dismissed for those criticisms, which she had made in the exercise of her duties on a matter of great public interest. AGERPRES (RO - author: Mihai Stoica, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Rodica State, editor: Adina Panaitescu)