Cover Osteuropa 6-8/2019

In Osteuropa 6-8/2019

Layers of conflict
The case of Dragnea, politics and the law

Reinhard Veser


Deutsche Fassung

Abstract

Since the PSD party won the election of December 2016, Romania has expe-rienced an exacerbation of the conflict that flared up during the early 2000s with the judicial reforms in preparation for EU accession. The powerful on-slaughts on the constitutional state by the government are an indirect indication of a positive development: they are a response to successes in establishing an independent judiciary, which is also taking action against powerful individuals in the fight against corruption. These successes were made pos-sible by an ongoing conflict between the government and the president. Judges and state attorneys have been forced against their will into taking a political stance as a result of the continued dispute surrounding the judiciary – including many people in society, who have come to regard them as a type of substitute opposition in light of the lack of political alternatives.

(Osteuropa 6-8/2019, pp. 113–128)