Leading Romanian Independent Journalist Condemned for Accurate Reporting

Romanian courts now rule against journalists not for lying, but simply for damaging the reputation of the powerful—even with documented proof.

There's so much to say about post-1989 Romanian media and the central role played by the Cațavencii/Academia Catavencu team, particularly investigative journalist Patrick André de Hillerin. They made history with their reporting—and their humor—from the very beginning of Romania's attempted transition to democracy.

Lately, as the world has witnessed, Romania has been accumulating democratic failures. It just pinned another case to its scorecard of shame: journalists being condemned not for spreading lies, but for publishing accurate, documented information that happens to damage the reputation of the powerful.

What follows is Patrick’s raw account, with minimal translator's notes.
(Original Facebook post here)

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A SINISTER DESPAIR

Let me apologize right from the start for taking up your time with a text about myself — partially more about me than you’re probably used to reading.

I would have liked to write to you that I won the lottery and, for a while, I'll only post photos from Sicily, where I would have bought a house by the sea.

But I didn't win the lottery, so neither will I be sending you pictures from Sicily...

Instead, I lost again in Romanian justice. And I am obligated, it seems, to pay Sebastian Burduja 50,000 lei (approximately €10,000 / $11,500) "for the moral damages caused by the harm brought to his image and reputation."

What did I do, in this case?

I published, on Facebook, documents from the investigation conducted in France after the death of Sebastian Burduja's daughter. I did this because, especially, Marinel Burduja had sued me saying, among other things, that no investigation had ever existed. Anyway, I did too little. I will publish the entire investigation file, in French and in authorized Romanian translation. Reading it, you will understand the sinister nature of this family that hid the negligent death of an innocent child because the clan's rising hope had a rally planned for August 10, 2018.

I've been writing in the press since 1990, since I was 15 years old. I've accumulated, until today, hundreds of lawsuits. I won most of them. Until recently, until 3-4 years ago. Because, in each trial, it was determined whether what I had written was true or not. And it was true, because that's what I do. There's no point in talking about lawsuits filed following opinion articles.

However, something new has appeared, for some time now. You're no longer sued, as a journalist, because you supposedly say things that aren't true. But because you harm the plaintiff's image and reputation and so on. Practically, as a journalist, you have no way to win such a case. Absolutely no way. When you write about an individual that he's corrupt or indolent, negligent or even criminal, you can't help but harm his image and reputation. Do you have evidence, do you have documents? It doesn't matter, it really doesn't matter in court. No matter how right you might be, that person's image and reputation have been tarnished, so you pay.

It seems hallucinatory, it is hallucinatory, but it is, at the same time, what happens in Romania and in the so-called justice of Romania.

Some years ago, both I and Doru Bușcu¹ as well as the magazine, jointly, were sentenced to pay damages to an individual who was in prison, ironically, as a result also of the things we had written. It can't get more hallucinatory than that.

So far, I've lost all the lawsuits with the Burduja family, although I haven't lied even a single letter in everything I've written about them, father and son. But, hey, I tarnished their image.

Cațavencii/Patetic Media paid all the sums ordered by the court, both those concerning the magazine, as editor, and those falling on me. Well, the plaintiffs had asked for hundreds of thousands of euros in damages, they received, from ashamed courts, a few thousand. 2, 3, 4. Marinel Burduja said he would donate this money to charitable causes. So far he hasn't done it. He simply pocketed it. That's how it is, that's how you make money, if not by stealing it from Bancorex depositors²...

After the first article I wrote about the case of the negligent killing of Sebastian Burduja's little girl, a petition came against me, signed by Mrs. Raluca Feher and approximately 300 people. Among these people (and organizations), there were also judges, judges' associations, "journalists" and editorial offices.

What chance did I have, in justice, when some judges had already pre-pronounced themselves?

And yet, I had one. I won on merit, especially with Burduja the little.

And, in general, almost all the cases I've lost lately, I had won on merit. I lost later, on appeal, after some unfortunate event. I'll write another text about this.

At the first trial with the Burduja clan, the newsroom's longtime lawyer decided to withdraw. Suddenly, like that. He made the defense for the first hearing and that's it, he ended a collaboration of over 20 years.

At the last hearings in the Burduja cases, the new lawyer for the newsroom, who also appeared in the editorial box, acted like he was hit. He didn't owe us anything, it's true, especially since we weren't paying him. I would have preferred him to call me beforehand and not communicate, in an indescribable state, to the Cațavencii publisher that we had no chances.

At the last court hearing, in this case where I was recently convicted, I went alone, without a lawyer. What was the point, if the sentence, in this case too, was predictable?

And yet, 50,000 lei moral damages to an individual who, on the day his daughter was in an induced coma in a hospital in Nice, posted on Facebook, on his way to the airport, a message about children's safety? Why?

The individual in question was, at that moment, party president and the initiator of a large-scale public demonstration.

50,000 lei. It's not much. That's about what I earned at Cațavencii in two years. Because it was no longer a job, it was a hobby.

The crowning absurdity is that I was ordered to delete a post I’d already removed — months earlier — under a presidential ordinance, or whatever they call it. The post from 22.05.2024 that the court obliges me to delete, I deleted it in June 2024. I was convicted for something that hasn't existed for more than a year.

For almost two years I've had all my accounts blocked by garnishments that I don't owe and by such absurd sentences.

I feel enormous despair. Like never before.

After the first article from 2018 about Burduja, when I sent the second one for publication, Doru called me to tell me that there was opposition in the newsroom to publishing that text. Wouldn't I, perhaps, want to give it up?

I didn't want to. I said I'd publish it anyway, but that it would be better if it appeared where the first one had appeared.³

It appeared. The text. But the bitter taste remained.

I was absolutely not wrong in revealing (even if painfully) the character of some people determined to seize power by any means. I DID NOT LIE. Not only did I not lie, but I also published documents that prove this.

Now, as I write this, I tend to say that I can't anymore, that despair has overwhelmed me and, somehow, injustice.

But, actually, I think I still can.

A lot, a little, we'll see.

Glory!

1. T.N.: Doru Buscu is Chief editor at Cațavencii.

2. T.N.: Marinel Burduja, a Romanian banker and father of politician Sebastian Burduja, was implicated in the Bancorex scandal due to his role as vice president of the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank (BRCE), later known as Bancorex, from 1994 to 1996. The scandal centered around the bank's collapse in 1999, which resulted in losses equivalent to 8% of Romania's GDP at the time, largely attributed to non-performing loans and preferential lending practices, including to former communist Securitate affiliates

3. T.N.: Both articles have since been removed from Cațavencii's website.