Masked police officers in Romania carried out fresh raids early Wednesday at the home of divisive internet influencer Andrew Tate, who is awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said it was searching four homes in Bucharest and nearby Ilfov county, investigating allegations of human trafficking, the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, influencing statements and money laundering. The agency added that hearings will later be held at its headquarters.
Fun fact about our legal system: we don’t do jury trials. The evidence and arguments are heard by the judge, who decides both guilty/not guilty and the sentence.
That’s a terrifying fact about your legal system.
Well, it could be depending on how robust their anti corruption practices are. Because what really makes more sense, 12 citizens, uneducated in law and its application, getting manipulated by differing levels of millionaire depending on the wealth of the defendant/plaintiff? Or a legal expert weighing the facts to determine their strength?
Because, both are open to corruption. The jury of your peers is open to corruption in the ways I’m sure most people on lemmy are familiar with, but the other way, with robust anti corruption laws, would arguably be better.
It would be easier and cheaper for an elite to bribe a hand full of judges then it would be to repeatedly bribe different sets of jurors.
Cheaper? Maybe. Easier? No, not really. Ion Popescu from Bumfuck, Nowhere doesn’t have the DNA breathing down his neck, watching for any signs of living outside his means and any unusual bank account activity.
EDIT: To be clear, I’m not saying corruption doesn’t happen. It does. I’m just saying it’s not automatically much worse than juries.
We have laws against bribery in the US and it still happens. I’m going to assume that it’s at least as bad in Romania considering Tate explicitly stated the corrupt justice system is why he moved there. His biggest fuck up was saying that out loud and forcing them to make an example out of him.
It remains to be seen whether or not he was correct in that assessment.