Gheorghe Cornescu of the General Prosecutor’s Office, one of the highest-paid magistrates in Romania, avoided accusations of cooperation with the Securitate by using a certificate of non-cooperation from 2002, although new elements appeared in his file, writes PRESShub.

Cornescu is to investigate the judges, who are chosen in this regard by the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM) and the Prosecutor General.

Summoned by the National Council for the Study of Security Archives (CNSAS), Gheorghe Cornescu avoided accusations of collaboration with Security based on the precedent set by Governor Mugur Iserescu. In his trial, the governor of the BNR managed, with the support of the Constitutional Court (KKR), to declare unconstitutional the re-examination of those who already have certificates of non-collaboration, even if new elements appeared in the case.

According to the Bucharest Court of Appeal, Gheorghe Cornescu was allegedly recruited by the Securitate when he was in his fourth year of law school in Bucharest “for informational manipulation of his future wife’s relatives from abroad”, for informational framing of colleagues, teachers and other students from the Grozăvești complex , during the period 1984-1988. Informational notes signed by the pseudonym “Corvin” were found in a dossier handed over by the Foreign Intelligence Service.

It follows from the motivation that the magistrate disputed the informative records, the authenticity of the writing and signature.

Cornescu argued that the documents filed in the case were illegible and asked the CAB to admit to the court the case prepared by the Securitate in the name of his father, “as well as the case against the defendant from the time he attended the High School Classes”.

The Court of Appeal established that “According to the Decision of the Constitutional Court No. 794/2021, Law No. 161/2019 was declared unconstitutional in its entirety” and that “being completely removed from the legal order Law No. 161/2019, is implicitly withdrawn, and Art. 121 is hereby entered in GEO no. 24/2008, the text of which allowed for a re-examination of the defendant and served as the basis for filing this lawsuit,” the court’s reasoning also states. In addition, “since the defendant has already been issued a decision on non-compliance and non-cooperation with the Security on the basis of the old law, (…), it can no longer be re-examined, which contradicts the provisions of Art. 32 of GEO No. 24/2008 was re-introduced into the current legal base as a result of the same decision declaring Law no. 161/2019, by which they were annulled, since the defendant is not among the persons who are examined ex officio, the only ones who can be subject to re-examination, according to the provisions of the law”, also states the Bucharest Court of Appeal.

CNSAS appealed the decision of the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court. The first appeal deadline was set for October 25 of the following year.

Cornescu returned to the magistracy with the help of the CSM after retiring as part of the new Magistrates Investigative Section, which has not brought any charges in the past 10 months since it was created, PRESShub also reports.

Gheorghe Cornescu is the highest paid prosecutor in Romania. Last year he received a salary of 243,000 lei, to which is added the pension he received as a former military prosecutor of 363,000 lei. A total of 606,000 lei per year, i.e. 50,000 net lei per month – approximately 10,000 euros per month.