Romanian Court Extends Călin Georgescu’s Arrest After Six Split Rulings

The Bucharest Court of Appeal on Wednesday 28 October extended the pre-trial detention of Călin Georgescu, the far-right former presidential candidate, for 30 days, from 29 October to 27 November inclusive. The decision is final, Digi24 reported.

The court admitted an appeal by DIICOT, Romania’s prosecution directorate for organised crime and terrorism, against a ruling of the Bucharest Tribunal that had refused to extend the arrest and placed him under judicial control instead. “Admite contestația formulată de PICCJ-DIICOT,” the operative text reads, according to Digi24: it admits the appeal brought by the prosecutors, and orders the extension of pre-trial arrest for the defendants. The reasoning had not been published by Thursday. Mr Georgescu denies wrongdoing and calls the investigations against him politically motivated, Al Jazeera reported, drawing on AFP and Reuters. His wife, Cristela Georgescu, called him a “deținut politic”, a political prisoner, Digi24 reported.

What is he accused of in this case?

Fraud. DIICOT alleges that Mr Georgescu and two other suspects persuaded a Romanian businessman to hand over 1.1 million euros by making him believe they could secure him a credit line of up to 15 million euros from a foreign financial institution, Al Jazeera reported. Digi24’s account names Ionel Rusen as one of the accused and says prosecutors later added allegations that Mr Georgescu tried to have surveillance microphones in his home destroyed, and presented evidence that he planned to leave for Italy. It is one of several cases against him: Digi24 reported on 22 October that he had been charged in a fifth, and Al Jazeera describes a separate case in which prosecutors accuse him of instigating violence after the 2024 vote was annulled, spreading false information and promoting fascist leaders of the 1930s. The rulings come eight days after Romania’s parliament installed a new government by 280 votes to 58.

How have the courts divided?

Evenly, and by level of court. Digi24 set out the sequence on 29 October. The table is drawn from that account; the tally and the day counts are this publication’s.

Six judicial decisions in 36 days, from 22 September to 28 October, three declining detention and three ordering it, and every one of the three refusals came from the court of first instance. On Digi24’s reading, none of the six questioned whether there was a reasonable suspicion against him; they differed on whether he had to be locked up while the case proceeds. Al Jazeera’s report describes Wednesday’s decision as overturning a 13 October ruling for house arrest; Digi24’s sequence, which this piece follows, places that reversal on 23 October.

What does the law ask a judge to find?

Two things, and the courts have split on the second. Article 223 of the Criminal Procedure Code allows pre-trial arrest “numai dacă din probe rezultă suspiciunea rezonabilă că inculpatul a săvârșit o infracțiune”, only if the evidence gives rise to a reasonable suspicion that the defendant committed an offence, and one of the situations the article lists applies, such as an attempt to evade prosecution or pressure on a victim, Digi24 reported. A second paragraph allows arrest where deprivation of liberty is necessary to remove a danger to public order. And the measure must be “proporțională cu gravitatea acuzației aduse persoanei”, proportionate to the seriousness of the accusation.

The Tribunal’s reasons ran one way each time. In September it found the alleged offences dated from 2021 and 2022, that the investigation had advanced while he was free, and that the danger had diminished, according to Digi24. On 26 October it found that the danger had “considerably diminished” and that, on the newer allegations, “nu există minime elemente de fapt din care să rezulte comiterea”: there were no minimal factual elements showing they had been committed. The Court of Appeal found in October that his release posed a concrete danger to public order that judicial control could not answer.

Under the code, the Tribunal’s judge of rights and liberties rules first and a challenge, a contestație, goes to the Court of Appeal, whose decision ends the matter, Digi24’s reports show. The arrest now expires on 27 November unless it is extended again. Each extension so far has begun with an application by DIICOT to the Tribunal that has three times refused it, and has ended with the court that has three times granted it.