National Anticorruption Directorate
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National Anticorruption Directorate Direcţia Naţională Anticorupţie (DNA) |
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|---|---|
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | 2002 |
| Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
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National agency (Operations jurisdiction) |
Romania |
| Legal jurisdiction | As per operations jurisdiction. |
| General nature |
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| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | Bucharest |
| Agency executive | Laura Codruța Kövesi, Prosecutor-General |
| Website | |
| www.pna.ro/ | |
The National Anticorruption Directorate (Romanian: Direcţia Naţională Anticorupţie (DNA)), formerly National Anticorruption Prosecution Office (Romanian: Parchetul Naţional Anticorupţie), is the Romanian agency tasked with preventing, investigating and prosecuting corruption-related offenses (such as bribery, graft, patronage and embezzlement) that caused a material damage to the romanian state.
The DNA is headed by a Chief-Prosecutor and 2 deputies, nominated by the Minister of Justice and appointed by the President of Romania. The Chief-Prosecutor of the Directorate is subordinated to the General-Prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
DNA was founded in 2003.
By 2015, acting under Laura Codruța Kövesi's leadership, the agency had gained traction against high-level corruption. The agency currently employs 120 prosecutors working on more than 6,000 cases, and has successfully prosecuted dozens of mayors, five MPs, two ex-ministers and a former prime minister in 2014 alone. Hundreds of former judges and prosecutors have also been brought to justice, with a conviction rate above 90%.
In 2015, 12 members of parliament have been investigated, including ministers: “we have investigated two sitting ministers, one of whom went from his ministerial chair directly to pre-trial detention”, Kövesi said.
A 2015 poll suggested that 60% of Romanian trust DNA, compared to only 11% expressing their trust in the Parliament.
The DNA has come under scrutiny for its “astonishingly high” conviction rates, which in 2015 were 92%. This conviction rate has been described as “more typical of countries like Russia and China, and highly suggestive of a system that is failing to protect defendants’ rights.”
By comparison, the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service published conviction rates of 81% in the Crown Court. However, if guilty pleas are excluded this falls to ‘fewer than one third’.
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Wikipedia