According to ZdG sources, Iurie Gatcan and Arcadie Rotaru are the two employees of the National Anti-Corruption Center (NAC) targeted in the criminal trial opened on Tuesday, September 26, on the fact of alleged illegal actions of some NAC employees, responsible for the accumulation, analysis and provision of information to the Pre-Vetting Commission, regarding the candidate for member of the Superior Council of Magistracy, Iulian Muntean.

More specifically, the head of the Operational Analysis Section of the NAC Analytical Directorate is Iurie Gaccan, who was employed in the Pre-Vetting Commission secretariat, and the current head of the Analytical Directorate is Arcadie Rotaru.

Iurie Gațcan has been employed at the NAC since 2016, being the head of the Section but also of the Directorate, according to the asset declarations submitted to the National Anticorruption Authority. His contract is currently “suspended”, according to the NAC press service, quoted by Europa Liberă.

Gațcan was appointed in June as a member of the Commission for the external evaluation of the ethical and financial integrity of judges and candidates for Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) judges (Vetting Commission) on behalf of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS).

Arcadie Rotaru has been head of the Analytical Directorate since July 2018. He co-signed the operational analysis report on Muntean in 2018 and 2023.

According to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA), the suspicions underlying the initiation of the criminal proceedings regarding the withholding of information about Iulian Muntean, consist in the fact that Iurie Gațcan – the NAC employee who in 2018 drafted the operational analysis report, including with regard to Iulian Muntean, is an employee of the secretariat of the Pre-Vetting Commission, and the head of the General Analytical Directorate of the NAC, responsible for conducting both operational analyses (in 2018 and 2023) with regard to Iulian Muntean, is the same person – Arcadie Rotaru.

The PA rectified the first release, on “clarifications of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office following the public hearings of 25 September 2023”, published on Tuesday, making one change. In the second version of the text, Gatcan is presented as “former employee of the Pre-Vetting Commission Secretariat”. The names of employees of the Pre-Vetting Commission secretariat have not been made public since its establishment until now.

According to the self-reporting document, on 14 December 2018, when questioned on 29 October 2018 by the NAC’s criminal prosecution body, in the criminal case with the generic name “ASEM”, Gațcan carried out the operational analysis with regard to three intermediaries, as well as with regard to students and teachers suspected or indicted, in the corruption acts, including also with regard to professor Iulian Muntean, who at that time had the procedural status of a defendant.

The next day, on 15 December 2018, through the covering letter signed by Arcadie Rotaru, the operational analysis report was sent to the NAC’s prosecution body.

“According to the NAC director’s statements during the public hearings on 25 September, which took place in Parliament, the verification of Iulian Munteanu took place by consulting the register of operational analysis reports.

Also according to the NAC director’s statements during the public hearing, at the request of the Pre-Vetting Committee, an operational analysis was carried out on candidate Iulian Munteanu,” the PA states.

On Friday 22 September, new SCM member Iulian Muntean, who is accused of corruption in a 2018 case, announced that he “believes he will submit his resignation request”.

Two days after information about the 2018 corruption case against Iulian Muntean emerged in the public space, the other members of the Council issued a statement expressing concern that Muntean had provided the Pre-Vetting Commission with “incorrect or incomplete information about an ongoing investigation initiated as early as 2018”. In this regard, the SCM members indicated that the best solution for Iulian Muntean would be to submit a resignation request.

The nine members of the SCM said they were also concerned that “although it had been known for several months that Iulian Muntean had been subject to checks before the Pre-vetting Commission, this information was nevertheless communicated to the public by state institutions only now, two weeks after his appointment as a member of the SCM for a six-year term”.

The Minister of Justice, Veronica Mihailov-Moraru, came with a reaction to the scandal involving the new non-judge member of the SCM, Iulian Muntean. The minister said that his failure to indicate in the Pre-Vetting Commission’s questionnaire that he had appeared as a defendant in a criminal case “raises serious doubts about his integrity”. Thus, “in order not to discredit his image and efforts in justice reform as a whole”, she recommended his “withdrawal or resignation” from office.

On 21 September, the Pre-Vetting Commission came up with clarifications in the context of information appearing in the public space regarding Iulian Muntean, a candidate for the position of member of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM), who passed the extraordinary evaluation on 14 August 2023, and was appointed by Parliament to the Superior Council of Magistracy on 7 September 2023, in the sense that he is allegedly accused in a criminal corruption trial dating back to 2018. According to the published press release, “throughout the evaluation process, the Commission has not been informed of any investigations or criminal proceedings involving Iulian Muntean”.

In order to assess the financial and ethical integrity of candidates, the Pre-Vetting Commission claims that, by law, it collects data from numerous public and private sources, including the National Anti-Corruption Centre and the Intelligence and Security Service.

Subsequently, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said it was not asked by the Pre-Vetting Commission to provide information on candidate Iulian Muntean “as was done in the case of other candidates”.

The family of the new non-judge member of the SCM, Iulian Muntean, who supported the integrity assessment despite having a status of a corruption indictment in a 2018 case, and was appointed by the Parliament, was involved in the election campaign of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) for the July 11, 2021 parliamentary elections.

Lawyer Iulian Muntean’s wife, Neli Muntean, has been a member of PAS since September 2021, i.e. after the elections. The information was confirmed for ZdG by the spokeswoman of the ruling party Adriana Vlas. However, Iulian Muntean, who also handed out election materials on behalf of PAS, was not previously a member of the party, according to the same sources.