10% of Romanian judges are said to be corrupt, but more of the very senior ones. Lia Savonea, "absolute ruler of the court system", is married to a man who declares a minimal income but has made millions in real estate.

"The ongoing fallout from investigative reports exposing systemic networks of elite magistrates—who use administrative reassignments to intentionally delay top-tier corruption trials past their statutes of limitations—continues to plague Bucharest. Public distrust in the independent judiciary remains at a staggering 70%." News item today.

It is staggering that 30% of Romanians do not express distrust in the judiciary.

It is deeply shocking.

I was speaking yesterday to a very senior competition lawyer who told me that if she no longer believed that the Romanian justice system did justice she would stop being a lawyer.

It showed a very good heart on her part but her faith in the system surprised me. Then again competition law is very much cleaner than other areas of law.

Competition law is something very important to the European Union because it concerns major international companies and it's very carefully scrutinised from Brussels. In competition cases the judges, unlike in most areas of law, are well trained. The room for bribing judges is very small as most of the firms that work in this area are either international firms or very well-known and famous Romanian firms. Cases are very high-profile.

When I came to this country in the 1990s I spent a lot of time talking to lawyers and heard innumerable stories of open, overt corruption. I could say much. 

After Monica Macovei became justice minister under President (and former Securitate agent) Traian Basescu we all understood that things became clean but in fact they did not.

There was a wonderful documentary in December by an outfit called Recorder, which broadcast judges openly talking about the occult influences that were brought to bear on them. How wonderful a thing the internet is in enabling all sorts of things to be exposed that formerly would have been buried. Let us hope the European Union does not succeed in muzzling it. 

This resulted in a remarkable public scandal where one very brave judge Raluca Moroșanu stood in front of the judges of the Court of Appeal who gathered together to reassure the public on television and to condemn the Recorder report. Without preface and without being invited to speak she accused them of widespread malpractice and talked of rigged trials and systematic retaliation by senior judges against less senior ones who were not biddable.

The judges had been ambushed. 

They were recorded by journalists talking audibly on their telephones saying they'd received messages from the PSD adjacent head of the Court of Cassation (the Supreme Court) who was giving them orders in absentia. She owns two very expensive houses, by the way, bought by saving up her salary. 

Like baddies in cowboy films the judges started to argue among themselves and became laughing stocks. It was very funny indeed. The Court of Appeal’s first press conference was meant to bury the exposé but instead the Court was hoist by its own petard. 

Thousands took to the streets across Romania, demanding the state protect honest judges. President Nicușor Dan bypassed the compromised judicial councils to consult directly with reformists. 

Now, the battle rests before the Supreme Court which is, of course, a judge in its own cause.

Nothing will be done about this in the end.

By the way almost three quarters of the judges on the Court of Appeal are women and 20 years ago the figure was almost two thirds. The very few women taxi drivers in Bucharest are almost always more honest and better drivers than their male counterparts. When it comes to judges, unfortunately, women are not more honest than men.

In England judges can be impeached, although no judge has been impeached since 1680 and he was not removed from office.

Judicial corruption in England isn't prevented by the threat of impeachment, but a sense of honour amongst the elite to which judges belong, even now despite the egalitarian social changes brought about by Tony Blair.

The pre-Communist Romanian elite was very unsatisfactory. But something nobody says is that the worst thing that communism did was to destroy the elites and any sense of noblesse oblige.

Most Romanian lawyers will tell you that judges, who do not become judges as a result of a career as a lawyer, like in England, but like in France are trained specially to be judges, 10% according to one judge speaking to Recorder are as in the old days stupid, ignorant and venal.

There have always been honest Romanian judges. I was told in the 2001 about one judge who happened to be a gypsy and sat on the Supreme Court that he was one of the minority of honest judges on that court.

What is fine is for Romanians to complain about this but when a foreigner like me does so people may be unhappy.

Google no longer makes it easy for chance readers to see what's written in blogs so not many people will read this.