#2019PresidentialElection/ Viorica Dancila: I have never taken justice by assault

Democratic Party's (PSD) presidential candidate Viorica Dancila stated on Tuesday that she never took justice by assault, but she in fact "corrected" things, when the Justice Ministers tried to intervene in the justice system. "I won't take responsibility for this. Because you have never seen Prime Minister Dancila taking justice by assault. I have never taken justice by assault. You should address this question to President Iohannis. I never intervened in the justice system. I even corrected things when the Minister of Justice tried to intervene in the justice system. For what I believe is politics and justice should remain separated. Justice must be done by specialists, by magistrates. As long as we don't understand this, we cannot speak of justice independence. The President too, he shouldn't intervene in the justice system, for he must be a model when it comes to his relation with the justice system," said Dancila, when asked if she took responsibility for "PSD's assault of justice." About her standpoint in relation to the modifications brought to the Criminal Code, Dancila said PSD is a democratic party and there is no "dictatorship" inside the PSD, meaning that the decisions are made by the statutory forum. "You shouldn't ask me about what happened in Parliament. I am not a member of Parliament," she said. Regarding the fact that she endorsed Ordinance 13 of 2017, Dancila said that, as far as she knew, there were no legal issues related to that Ordinance. "I don't think that an Ordinance like that would be timely now. We had a referendum saying the Government can no longer issue emergency ordinances in the justice field," added Dancila. In respect to the approaches she made as a MEP regarding ordinance 13, Dancila said she had to explain what was the situation in the country. "I was not the PM back then, I was a MEP. I had to explain what happened, because there were so many attacks from Monica Macovei, Cristian Preda who presented an image of the country that wasn't honourable for them to present. (...) Regardless of what happens in the country, we shouldn't take all these problems outside," said Dancila. AGERPRES (RO - author: Alina Novaceanu, editor: Catalin Alexandru; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)