Security links remain at the top of the state, including the Constitutional Court

The admission by Constitutional Court judge Bogdan Licu that he served in the former Security troops during the 1989 revolution has revived questions about who still holds influence at the top of Romania’s state institutions. Licu said he served as a medic and carried no ammunition, but he was near areas where civilians were shot during the December violence.

The timing of the disclosure is one reason the article treats it as significant. It came after details emerged about the biography of Lucian Pahonțu, the head of Romania’s Protection and Guard Service, or SPP. Pahonțu served as a lieutenant and led a Security platoon that was in the area of the Intercontinental barricade during the night of Dec. 21-22, 1989, when civilians were killed.

The article also points to questions raised by former Justice Minister and USR lawmaker Stelian Ion. After Recorder published an investigation titled “The Hidden Biography of General Pahonțu,” Ion publicly asked about the relationship between Pahonțu and Licu, as well as between Pahonțu and Mihaela Ciochină, a former adviser to Klaus Iohannis who now serves as a Constitutional Court judge.

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What is the connection between Lucian Pahonțu and Bogdan Licu from the Constitutional Court? And between Lucian Pahonțu and Klaus Iohannis’s former adviser, Mihaela Ciochină, now a Constitutional Court judge?

Ion has criticized Constitutional Court decisions that he says have favored the Social Democratic Party or punished figures such as Dominic Fritz. He also recalled repeated efforts by SPP personnel to persuade him to accept a driver and, potentially, a security officer assigned by Pahonțu. Ion suggested the personnel may have been intended to monitor him rather than protect him, describing a system that blocked reform and protected state privileges and control over the justice system.

The article revisits earlier scrutiny of Licu as well. Deutsche Welle reported in 2022 on his complicated biography and his attempt, while interim prosecutor general, to block the adoption of a girl by Romanian parents living in the United States. Licu sought to overturn a final court decision, citing classified information. When he was later proposed as first deputy prosecutor general, the Superior Council of Magistracy issued a negative opinion, citing, among other issues, a lack of foresight.

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They were precisely the threats coming from a security apparatus in which any reform had to be prevented, and the network of privileges, the capture of the Romanian state and the capture of justice had to be protected.