After much public outcry over his pardoning of Miron Cozma, Iliescu today revoked his decision. Cozma was arrested again in Timisoara today. Apparently, he tried to flee the country after hearing that his pardon had been revoked. There’s a clip that’s been playing over and over again on the news — it shows Cosma grabbed, surrounded by police and (protesting vigorously) herded into the paddy wagon.
He had huge, rock-star hair, great curly masses of it. Maybe he just let it grow in prison? I didn’t know that was allowed.
Anyway. One bad guy down, good.
The voice of the people has been heard and acted upon, also good.
The public mess and the impression this must leave in the international community, not good at all.
This whole affair has turned into a farce but nobody is laughing. Romanians wonder what has gotten into Iliescu. All my acquaintances today were outraged or depressed by the news of the pardon, confused and bewildered by the revocation. Wild rumors are flying but since they change every hour, it’s no use documenting them. Can you revoke a pardon, anyhow? Or are they claiming that the pardon wasn’t issued properly? That’s still not clear — at first it seemed the latter (Nastase said he didn’t counter-sign it?) but now it seems the former. Maybe we will know more in a day or two.
Then again, maybe not.
Well, take comfort in the fact that most people outside Romania won’t even notice.
How many people remember Belgian Willy Claes, former NATO chief, busted for bribery in the Agusta affair, now reinstated and appearing in political talk shows?
I remember Mr Claes’ tv appearances on the day he was caught. The details are vague but I knew that one moment he was fuming in front of the camera because he was being accused of corruption. “How dare they!” A few hours later he was back on tv, confessing.
link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/241342.stm
It is sad, but eventually people forget. And most do not even notice.
Hmm I think the problem is the whole idea of presidential pardons, it seems it’s main use is to pay off political favours when one leaves office.
Probably a justice system which is necessarily based on formality needs an extraordinary way to be flexible. But as soon as pardons can be revoked you are ending up with arbitrarily jailing people. That must not be allowed.
Possibly one criterion of EU entry should be pardons being final.
The way I see it, perhaps one criterion of EU entry should be that pardons shouldn’t exist.
Pardons are final. That’s the real kicker. In a year or two, the Romanian courts will rule that Iliescu acted illegally to jail Miron Cosma. He’ll have his pardon reinstated. Iliescu will be able to say, “hey, if it were up to me, he’d be in jail right now” and laugh at the fools who believe him. All the believers in the rule of law will have to defend having Miron Cosma out on the streets, a very tough thing to do.
The use of presidential pardons, originally a safety valve for imperfect judicial systems, does give rise to some perverse behaviour. Apart from reducing the pressure to fix those less than perfect systems it can encourage anti-social behaviour. A few years ago, French drivers would happily break every rule in the book at this time of year knowing full well that, should they get caught, the president would forgive all driving offences at new year. Why? Because there were too many outstanding offences to process. Perverse.
I’m with the “pardons shouldn’t exist” club.
The way I see it, perhaps one criterion of EU entry should be that pardons shouldn’t exist.
Hence expelling all present members?
Seriously, there must be a way to fix mistakes. At some point even the best of systems cannot replace sound judgement.
Apart from reducing the pressure to fix those less than perfect systems
That would mean to sacrifice the individual affected for the common good. Morally speaking arbitrarely singling out an individual to pay for sins of the community is unacceptable.
By the way, Miron Cozma was only jailed for the 90-91 incidents. He’s still being jailed for the 99 incident and he’ll most likely end up in jail again.
I meant “still being judged”.
Pardons need to exist.
People are fallible. Ergo, there needs to be a way to fix human mistakes.
People are fallible. Ergo, there needs to be a way to fix human mistakes.
Mrs T shows how it can and should be done in “Torture…”
People are, indeed, fallible. Which is why presidents shouldn’t make such decisions. At least judges are (a) professionally impartial, (b) not in need of campaign funds or votes and (c) often come in threes or fives. Better to fix the process than institute a fudge.
Processes normally require administration, and trade-offs, and arbitrary decisions by less than ‘always fair’ individuals.
Pardons go above processes. Maybe a council of judges could look at every judgement, and rule a pardon or some other alleviating decree in every case it had reasonable doubt or saw unusual circumstances. I do not think, even for a minute, that courts in North America (I cannot speak for Europe-probably is much the same?)have as their ultimate goal justice … every judgement is therefore questionable and I for one would love to see some omnipotent person or tribunal (with good credentials) reduce every sentence it wished or cared to.
I am very serious about this statement. My seriousness is shown by this following statement; I would love to see North American justice and penal systems bulldozed into a crater, and reconstructed, afresh, by ordinary citizens without archaic beliefs and without personal economic interest in how the systems were constructed.
People are, indeed, fallible. Which is why presidents shouldn’t make such decisions. At least judges are (a) professionally impartial, (b) not in need of campaign funds or votes and (c) often come in threes or fives. Better to fix the process than institute a fudge.
(a) Judges see everything through the professional legal lens. That is what want to avoid in issuing pardons. Pardons are used to factor in extralegal factors.
(b) Judges have to be appointed somehow.
(c) A council may be better than a single individual, but too often such comitees degenerate into political horse-trading.
(d) There is no such thing as a perfect system. You will end up with a contradictory system that tries to please everyone and ends up pleasing nobody. The amount of complexity in a working system is limited.