Abstract
This chapter focuses on the legal and political authorities working in the area of anti-corruption. Bratu argues that transnational anxieties regarding possible abuses of EU financial interests have put in place an extraordinary multilevel control system with ambiguous effects. The new legal-institutional order is sustained by emerging bureaucratic identities connected to high-profile anti-corruption and anti-fraud institutions constructed as ‘elite squads’. However, Bratu shows that implementing the new anti-corruption routines clashes with vernacular work practices leading to resistance and paradoxical outcomes that involve heavy reliance on informal practices.
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Notes
- 1.
Corpus Juris is a set of European common rules regarding unification on criminal matters that are to be followed by every member state (see Appendix II: Guiding principles of Corpus Juris 2000. Draft agreed in Florence).
- 2.
The restraining of certain rights refers to the rights mentioned in the Romanian Criminal Code, article 64 which reads: “The complementary punishment of restraining certain rights means the restraint of one of more of the following: (a) the right to elect and be elected to public authorities or to a public position; (b) the right to occupy a position presuming the exercise of state authority; (c) the right to occupy a position or practice a profession or activity similar to the one that the offender used to commit the offence; (d) parental rights; (e) the right to be a guardian or a curator.”
- 3.
Art. 214. (1) The act of causing loss to a person, in bad faith, on the occasion of administering or preserving his/her assets committed by the person charged with the administration or preservation of those assets, shall be punished by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years. (2) Fraudulent management committed in order to acquire a material benefit shall be punished by imprisonment from 3 to 10 years, if the act is not a more serious offence. (3) If the asset is in private property, except for the case when it is wholly or partly State property, criminal action for the act in para.(1) is initiated upon prior complaint from the injured person.
- 4.
Art. 215. (1) The act of deceiving a person, by presenting a false fact as being true or a true fact as being false, in order to obtain unjust material benefit for oneself or for another and, if damage was caused, shall be punished by imprisonment from 6 months to 12 years. (2) Deceit committed by using untruthful names or capacities or other fraudulent means shall be punished by imprisonment from 3 to 15 years. If the fraudulent means is in itself an offence, the rules for concurrence of offences shall apply. (3) The act of deceiving or maintaining the deceit of a person, when concluding or executing a contract, if without this deceit the person would not have concluded or executed the contract in the conditions stipulated, shall be sanctioned by the penalty provided in the previous paragraphs, according to the distinctions shown there. (4) The act of issuing a cheque with regard to a credit institution or a person, while being aware that the supply or cover necessary for its realisation does not exist, as well as the act of withdrawing the supply, wholly or in part, after the issuing, or of prohibiting the acceptor from paying before expiry of the presentation term, for the purpose in para.(1), if damage was caused against the owner of the cheque, shall be sanctioned by the penalty provided in para.(2). (5) Deceit that resulted in particularly serious consequences shall be punished by imprisonment from 10 to 20 years and the prohibition of certain rights.
- 5.
Art. 215 1. (1) The act, committed by a clerk, either for him/herself or for another, of appropriating, using or trafficking money, values or other assets in his/her management, shall be punished by imprisonment from one to 15 years. (2) In case the embezzlement had particularly serious consequences, the penalty shall be imprisonment from 10 to 20 years and the prohibition of certain rights.
- 6.
Art. 288. (1) The act of forging an official document by counterfeiting the writing or the signatures or by altering it in any manner, likely to produce a legal consequences, shall be punished by imprisonment from 3 months to 3 years. (2) The forgery in the previous paragraph, if committed by a clerk during the exercise of service prerogatives, shall be punished by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years. (3) Tickets or any other printed documents producing legal consequences are equated with official documents. (4) An attempt is punishable.
- 7.
Art. 289. (1) The act of forging an official document when it is drawn up, committed by a clerk during the exercise of service prerogatives, by certifying untrue acts or circumstances or by omitting, in awareness, to insert certain data or circumstances, shall be punished by imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years. (2) An attempt is punishable.
- 8.
Art. 290. (1) The forgery of a document under private signature by any of the means in Art. 288, if the perpetrator uses the forged document or gives it to another person for use, in order to produce legal consequences, shall be punished by imprisonment from 3 months to 2 years or by a fine. (2) An attempt is punishable.
- 9.
Art. 291. The use of an official document or of a document under private signature, while knowing that it is forged, in order to produce legal consequences, shall be punished by imprisonment from 3 months to 3 years when the document is official and by imprisonment from 3 months to 2 years or by a fine when the document is under private signature.
- 10.
Art. 292. The act of making an untruthful statement before a body or institution of the State or another unit in Art. 145, in order to produce legal consequences either for oneself or for another, when, according to the law or to the circumstances, the statement made is used to produce that consequence, shall be punished by imprisonment from 3 months to 2 years or by a fine.
- 11.
According to the organisational scheme approved by Order 123/2009.
- 12.
- 13.
According to the 2010 and 2011 DNA annual reports, the Unit for Combating the Corruption Crimes committed against the Financial Interests of the European Community from DNA had to perform its activity with only two prosecutors as one was detached to DLAF.
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Bratu, R. (2018). Flat-Caps and Shackles: New Hierarchies of Bureaucratic Belonging. In: Corruption, Informality and Entrepreneurship in Romania. Political Corruption and Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66667-9_6
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