Thank You, America!

I had been living in Bucharest, in the post-totalitarian chaos, to put it frankly, for only three years. I had moved there from the country, tempted by an inviting judicial career, which I could not have pursued elsewhere. In order to have that career, I slaved away diligently, dividing my time between the office and the streets. In a very short period of time, I started to experience life in the capital only through the murders I had to deal with day and night. One of these sordid events, described with painstaking detail in a homicide file, would put my name on a lucky list.

The list included the names of a few magistrates chosen to travel across the ocean for a five-week experience in an exchange program. I had never even hoped to go to America; it was too much for me. I had barely managed to leave the town of Turnu Măgurele and did not think I would get any farther. Besides, it did not feel right to push my luck and anger the gods. The news came in January, around the Epiphany holiday, and we were set to leave sometime in June, after six months of waiting. The wait was tormenting, long and exhausting. All of a sudden, a new world opened before me, and I realized I lacked both the experience of traveling abroad and knowledge of foreign languages.

I had never imagined that I would leave my home, fly on an airplane, hold a banknote with the face of the legendary George Washington printed on it or get to represent Romania . . . I felt dizzy just thinking about it. The six months went by too slowly, as if time stood still. Occasionally, I would imagine that an enemy’s hand erased my name from the list, or that I was being turned away at the airport, having my dream shattered forever. I was so tense that my mind played tricks on me. Youth is always hurried and impatient, and can easily give way to hallucinations and fantasies.

On the airplane, freed from my bad thoughts, I thanked the heavens for the unexpected opportunity. My journey through Washington, New York, Portland, Denver and San Antonio seems beyond reality now. The people we met there were kind and generous and received us in a gentle and understanding manner, without looking down on us. At the end of the day, we were coming from the enemy’s ranks, from the place where the Ceauşescu spouses had been shot in the name of the law. It would have only been natural for them to treat us as some of history’s late cannibals, eager to preach egalitarianism on Earth and bury capitalism deep underground, because, in their eyes, we continued to represent the danger of communist contamination, the tools of Satan himself.

However, suspicion existed on both sides, which placed us in almost irreconcilable positions. The ideological roots I had never become aware of sprung to the surface, faced with the danger that they might be cut off forever. And, to be perfectly honest, it was not easy for me to understand North American ways, especially when it came to legal matters. For instance, it was hard for me to adjust to the appeal to the community through the juries, the possibility of not giving statements or the presumption of innocence. The exaggerated formalism of the judicial procedures irritated me, although the holy character of the law had been developed by the Romans and not by the Yankees.

My tendency to argue tempted me to criticize, to question everything and strongly deny Anglo-Saxon rules. I was disarmed by the relaxed manner in which the participants in the court trials played their parts. There was no sign of our tenacity, of our sometimes savage passion! Verdicts did not bear the mark of blood and conflict, on the contrary. The courtrooms were clean and civilized, just like our pharmacies, and the spectators looked as if they had been selected in a casting audition. The judges, discrete and serene, oversaw the duels between defense attorneys and prosecutors with an aristocratic sobriety. And, on top of it all, the defense attorneys and the prosecutors did not shy away from having lunch together!

Society did not blame them from the start for such meetings, as happens here in Romania, in the realm of concealed guilt. The confrontations “at the bar” were not imbued with animosity and tension, proving that judicial truth could also be found in a cordial and elegant antagonism. But this atmosphere is essentially dependent on the judge, who has the capacity to be impartial and wise and not be manipulated by the prosecution. Whether we like it or not, the judge is the central character in the legal process, the infallible referee, and his lack of expertise or his partisanship has a major impact on the court’s sentence.

At that time, I did not see things this way, I have to admit it. Because of my age and education, I was stubbornly arguing for the superiority of the inquisitional system I had been brought up in. The provincialism of my mentality and attitude refused to give in without a struggle. It was fighting viciously against American imperialism, and prevented me from letting go of the complexes I had obtained in the multilaterally developed “garrison.” In the decades after that, I became aware, before others did, of the limitations in the system imposed by the Soviet invaders, and for this I am indebted to my American colleagues. Without their help, I would not have realized that the judge, and not the prosecutor, is the fundamental pillar of fair justice. Of a justice that is independent and safe from political demands, a justice meant to ensure and maintain social equilibrium. For making these things clear, I thank you, America!