Whether the Vicol-Ciorbă spouses are guilty or not will be determined by the court, for now they enjoy the presumption of innocence, just like all other suspects in the Nordis case.
However, the massive case far exceeds the strictly criminal issue. Equally serious is the political complicity and, increasingly evident, that within the judicial system.
From the start, I would note that a scheme of such proportions as the one described first by Recorder and then, much more dubiously, by prosecutors, can only be developed with the certainty of perfect legality, which is hard to believe based on public information, or perfect impunity.
What pleads for the second option? Factually, a few clues:
1. Recorder wrote about the Nordis scheme last fall, but the in rem file at DIICOT was opened as early as 2023. The imputed acts started as early as 2018, according to the Prosecutor's Office, and numerous victims claim to have filed complaints, but with no results. In the meantime, Mrs. Vicol became a deputy and even the president of the Legal Committee in the Chamber of Deputies.
What prevented DIICOT for so long from doing its job? We can only have suspicions for now. It could be about political support (I will come back to it) not only from the PSD, because political sources also mention a beautiful friendship between Mrs. Vicol and Mrs. Gorghiu.
It could be about complicity within DIICOT. I am among those who consider the profession of lawyer to be free, but I would note a coincidence: according to the press, the former head of DIICOT, Mrs. Giorgiana Hosu, is a lawyer for Mr. Ciorbă in other cases, not in this case, at least not officially.
2. Sources from the system say that the case prosecutor has been trying for a long time to move forward with the case, but was not allowed. There are even reports of a rather harsh discussion at the DIICOT's year-end party, where he was reproached for losing patience.
3. But the most serious clue lies in Mrs. Vicol's words, reproduced in the transcript of an intercepted conversation presented in the prosecutor's request for preventive arrest.
"I found out, a good friend of mine who works somewhere told me to prepare, that they want to take this one from the house" or "we wake up at 6 in the morning every day since they announced that DIICOT is coming to take him from the house."
Mrs. Vicol changed her phone just one day before the home search when she handed over the new phone, as shown in the document. Normally, it shouldn't be difficult to find out who the helpful friend is, the author of a fully-fledged criminal act.
And Mrs. Vicol's friendships in justice, are they based on irresistible chemistry or on money, a lot of money from the Nordis business.
Unraveling these complicities that question the fairness of the process is imperative and of a similar importance to the cause itself.
The Political Aspect of the Case
Of course, the leaders of the PSD, led by Mr. Ciolacu, are not accountable for the possible criminal acts of the Vicol-Ciorbă couple. Perhaps they didn't know what kind of scheme Nordis was.
But when she was promoted on the PSD lists as a deputy and then as the head of the Legal Committee, when she flew with her on trips about which it is still far from clear who paid for them, Mr. Ciolacu, Mr. Grindeanu knew who Mrs. Vicol was.
They knew she was a lawyer not just in criminal law, which is absolutely fine, not just for mobsters, which wouldn't be the end of the world, but one subservient to them. The intercepted conversation of Mrs. Vicol with an individual named Marian Bejan, accused of extremely serious crimes, including murder, and who speaks to her like a doormat, is famous. He calls her names and tells her, "You talk now when I want, not when you want!" It happened a year before she became the head of the Legal Committee and was public information at that time.
As a detail, she was propelled into Parliament and the Legal Committee by the Dolj organization, and by Olguța Vasilescu, the same person who propelled the current Minister of Justice.
How could Marcel Ciolacu imagine that such a person was suitable for such positions and to spend his free time in her company, on "arrogance" type vacations? And if he was encouraged to imagine, and if he is so lacking in discernment, how can he be at the helm of the state himself? How many prime ministers from solid democracies would have survived politically such a scandal?
This scandal encapsulates everything rotten in the tentacles of the politico-financial octopus, including a certain type of opulent and ostentatious parvenuism visible in Mrs. Vicol's public appearances, in private jet trips to Formula 1 races, with costs paid from the documented frauds by prosecutors.
The Flight to the Messiah
The astonishment, disgust, and anger of citizens in the face of such a situation are easy to understand. And in voting, it translates into antisystem. More precisely, into the antisystem that demands for the Messiah from Tik Tok or for the "Messiah from the shed" a vote against political parties that should be replaced by an enlightened savior, extremist, or pro-European, ultimately, it doesn't even matter.
What matters is that this antisystem denies what represents the sine qua non condition of democracy. Without a president, it exists, in monarchies. The president can be stronger or weaker, depending on whether the political regime is presidential, semi-presidential, or parliamentary. But democracy without parties and parliament does not exist, no matter how enlightened the savior may be. Either he is a charlatan, or he is a dictator.
But we live in an era of extreme emotions, of radicalized sects, each with its own Messiah. Arguments are abolished, critical thinking is demonized, the path to disaster is open.