The situation in Romania is getting worse in terms of standards of rule of law, good administration and democratic principles. In this context, we show only a few of the main issues that are worrying and which TI-Romania mentioned at the time:

•    the non-transparent and non-participatory way in which civil and criminal codes were promoted and adopted, with complete ignorance of those to be applied, codes built into elitist closed groups that, although in good faith, allowed interest groups to interfere and to promote or protect its financial interests
•    the outright disregard of the population's demands revealed by opinion polls when the Government decided not to hold wide public consultations
•    the cancellation of the operational independence of the Anti-Fraud Department in the context in which the greatest vulnerabilities could occur in the area of structural funds spending, knowing that the main sources of money attract the main vulnerabilities to corruption
•    the unauthorized interference of the Information Services in the Magistrates 'Magistrates' Rights, manifested through the case of the judges in Neamt, shows that the democratic standards are no longer protected by the façade
• treating Parliament as a mere reflection institution, without a real and lasting word on the laws passed in this country, demonstrated both in the case of codes and by the appearance of Ordinance 61/2009
• blocking any means of controlling and sanctioning criticisms of illegality brought to ANI leadership as of February 2009 publicly in the meeting of the National Integrity Council and, moreover, the tendency to turn NIC as a surveillance body into a docile body at the ANI disposition,    which is monitored, shows how powerful the pressure instruments are
•     the lack of decision and the protection given to the leadership of the ANI, the President and the Secretary General, as this institution derailed from the standards of the rule of law, transforming itself into a pressure institution without the possibility of any results the conditions in     which Romania is a member of the Council of Europe and of the European Union no administrative judicial body may not have the administrative procedure of secrecy verification and can not take decisions without respecting the rights of defense, the court shall ab initio for procedural reasons reject the results of any investigations made). This institution was created in order to be able to demonstrate on the merits by inaccurate investigations of cases of unjust enrichment, conflict of interest or incompatibility in the public administration. Unfortunately, due to maladministration, it is possible that individuals who have truly hidden their possessions or have exercised the functions of the office under incompatibility or conflict of interest may even be dropped by ANI through vicious investigations against them
• the excessive politicization of the public administration system through the forceful change of senior civil servants, especially at the level of prefectures with people without experience in public administration, or the appointment of heads of deconcentrated departments of ministries on political grounds, show a lack of interest in the correct, independent and efficient functioning of public administration paid out of public money
• amending public procurement legislation to eliminate any possibility of suspending a contract with direct effects on major infrastructure works will lead to an increase in vulnerabilities identified in all public infrastructure investment studies and barometers

There are other examples that will be highlighted in Transparency International Romania's reports and monitoring. In response to these points of view and the critical way in which Transparency International Romania understood to signal alarming errors in the management of public interests, a real campaign against this organization and its representatives was launched, which is unprecedented and not can be compared to another, against another organization.

The strategy of this campaign was to reduce the impact of our critics in society, using the simple "Look who's talking!" Mechanism.

Transparency International Romania has played a particularly important role in Romania's effort to integrate Romania through its technical assistance and advocacy activities for the design of public policies in the field of combating corruption, as follows:

• we have contributed to promoting the establishment of the National Integrity Agency since 2004 and permanently during the adoption of the legislation
• I contributed to the design of anti-corruption strategies
• I participated and contributed to the organization of the General Anticorruption Directorate
• I defended the independence of the prosecutors from the National Anticorruption Directorate, when the Ministry of Justice attempted to abusively replace a Head of Section
• we have helped to establish a free legal aid system for citizens who do not have financial resources so that access to justice is guaranteed, even if the political decision in 2008 was that this system would not be very extensive
• we have contributed through our experts to the adoption of decision-making legislation
• I promoted the emergence of the integrity whistleblower law, which annulled the Omerta law in the public sector
• we have promoted the transparency of resolutions and ordinances issued by prosecutors by amending the Code of Criminal Procedure
• we promoted the change of money laundering legislation so as to create a mechanism for monitoring the politically exposed and implementing in Romania of the Money Laundering Directive
• I have promoted the code of conduct for contract staff in the administration
• we conducted 3 consecutive independent annual studies on the perception of magistrates on the independence of the judiciary
• I participated in the effort to elaborate the three laws in the field of justice as an integrated part of the AJER (Alliance for European Justice)
• we have periodically carried out public awareness campaigns on the phenomenon of corruption so that citizens understand what is really happening and how they can oppose
• we have set up the Anticorruption Assistance Center for Citizens since 2003, which has now expanded globally, with Transparency International having a network of more than 40 such centers across all continents
• we have implemented monitoring programs for public authorities as well as training programs for civil servants in which we have promoted good practice and good governance standards in the public sector
• last but not least, I have monitored and reacted to all the slippings that governments that followed in their power manifested through certain decisions, by announcing the media about these things, or by responding with independent views to the questions of journalists who were monitoring these topics

All these efforts, presented only succinctly and exemplified, were made by Transparency International Romania's members, activists, experts and collaborators.

We will continue to fulfill our organizational mission by preserving our political independence in the spirit of the values of the Transparency International movement and strongly reject any attacks on our organization.

Such attacks on Transparency International were also in Bosnia Herzegovina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Zimbabwe. Attacks ranged from media campaigns to abusive investigations or threats to the professional positions that IT activists held in other institutions. In all these countries where corruption is high, the TI movement is particularly inconvenient. In all of these examples, IT continued to promote its mission, which was particularly useful to society, and did not abstain from the principles that define it.

Even if the orchestrated campaign against our organization continues, we are alarming that democratic standards, freedom of thought and opinion, freedom of expression must be protected, no matter what nongovernmental organization or media is or will be at the heart of such campaigns.

Romania has engaged in a democratic course that it has hardly consolidated and from which we are all responsible not to allow for deviation.                                 

Victor ALISTAR,

Executive Director