Monica Macovei

Monica Luisa Macovei (born 4 February 1959) is a Romanian politician, lawyer and former prosecutor, and former Member of the European Parliament from the European Conservatives and Reformists and formerly a member of the Romanian Democratic Liberal Party (PDL).

She was the Minister of Justice of Romania in the first cabinet of Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu.

In this position she was credited with implementing the justice reforms required for Romania to become a member state of the European Union.

Monica Macovei graduated in 1982 with honors from the Law Faculty of the University of Bucharest; in 1994 she received a master's of law in comparative constitutional law from the University of the State of New York/Central European University.

She has served as a lecturer in law at the University of Bucharest.

She has also authored a number of books and articles on legal and human rights themes.

Macovei was a prosecutor between 1983 and 1997, during the Communist and post-Communist periods.

Prior to her appointment as Justice Minister, Macovei was a civil society activist for political reform, democratization, and human rights in post-1989 Romania.

From 1997 to 2004 she was a lawyer with the Bucharest Bar.

In 1997, Macovei was an Eisenhower Exchange Fellow, an honor awarded to "men and women of outstanding achievement in mid-career, who are expected to assume positions of influence and make a difference" in their home regions, countries, or globally.

In 2000, she assisted Romanian gay rights groups in overturning Article 200, one of the last sodomy laws in Europe.

She served from 2001-2004 as president of the Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania - The Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH)

Macovei served as an expert/advisor to the Council of Europe, the European Roma Rights Center, the UN Development Program, the Open Society Institute, and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.

She was a founding member of Transparency International-Romania.

She conducted research on gender in Romanian law and on violence against women, among many other issues.

As an activist, she spoke out for the need to reform Romanian justice and remove institutional protections for officials involved in corruption.

She called attention to police brutality and impunity, continued political influence over the judiciary, and the lack of strong legal culture in Romania, among other issues.

She represented over 20 plaintiffs before the European Court of Human Rights and trained over 1,000 law enforcement personnel on the rule of law and the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2002, along with other Romanian human rights activists, she publicly opposed the indictment of a former aide to previous President Emil Constantinescu after he accused then Prime Minister Nastase of corruption.

Many Romanian news commentators agreed with her, noting what they called a serious attack on the freedom of expression.

Macovei, herself, characterized the arrest as "one of the worst attempts to muzzle the press in Romania" since communism collapsed.

The arrest received widespread attention in Europe as an example of alleged abuses against the press at the time.

As an activist, Macovei supported LGBT rights, an issue on which she would also focus in her political career.

Macovei was appointed Justice Minister in December 2004, following the surprise victory of then Democratic Party (PD) leader Traian Băsescu in the second round of presidential elections against Social Democratic Party (PSD) candidate Adrian Năstase.

Băsescu's victory was characterized in the media as Romania's "Orange Revolution," comparing the victory of perceived reformists in Romania to events in neighboring Ukraine during the same period.

It was also a reference to the orange color used by the winning Justice and Truth Alliance, which comprised the PD and the National Liberal Party (PNL) led by Calin Popescu-Tăriceanu.

Independent civil society organizations played an important role in securing the victory of the Justice and Truth Alliance, and Macovei's appointment was seen as acknowledgement of this contribution.

As an activist who had spent much of her career advocating for judicial reform in Romania, she also appeared to be well-situated to implement extensive reforms as well as increased efforts against high profile corruption, both of which were requirements for EU accession.

Anti-corruption was also a prominent theme in the parliamentary and presidential elections of that year.

Shortly after her appointment, Macovei stated that "fighting corruption" would be one of the top priorities of the Ministry of Justice under her leadership.

Many of Macovei's actions as minister were aimed at eliminating vestiges of communism from the Romanian justice system.

She disbanded the Justice Ministry's secret service, called the General Directorate for Protection and Anti-Corruption, which had continued operating after the fall of communism.

The organization had been wiretapping judges and gathering other information, which, Macovei stated, "we do not really know ended up where or with whom."

She also implemented new procedures to check the backgrounds of judges and prosecutors to determine if they had worked with the former Securitate internal intelligence service and to remove those who had collaborated.

Macovei secured passage of legislation to eliminate immunities accorded to former government ministers and other government notables and to make tax evasion a criminal offense.

She increased the salaries of judges and prosecutors to make them less susceptible to bribes.

While Minister of Justice, Macovei intervened in May 2005 to help ensure that the Romanian LGBT rights group Accept could hold the country's first pride parade, the Bucharest GayFest, after the Bucharest City Hall had denied the group a parade permit.

As MEP, she joined the European Parliament Intergroup on LGBT rights.

She was the only Romanian politician to support Bucharest GayFest 2011.

Macovei was also an independent candidate in Romania's 2014 presidential elections.