The verdict in the case of Dominic Fritz, mayor of Timișoara, arrived on 18 June. Unlike in other EU countries, the outcome caused barely a ripple in public debate. Fritz, accused of conflict of interest, saw his trial presented to the public by the conservative-aligned broadcasters, Realitatea, Antena, România TV, not as a legal technicality, but as a case of outright incompatibility. The difference is not trivial. Incompatibility carries a different legal and political weight. In the weeks leading to the decision, these channels pressed their narrative relentlessly. Once the court found no incompatibility, the correction never came. No broadcaster retracted or clarified its reporting. The news cycle simply moved on, the damage to public perception left unaddressed.

This is not a quirk of the Romanian media environment. It is a symptom of how the rule of law has become, in Romania, less a living principle and more a slogan deployed for convenience. The thesis I advance is that the rule of law, as a substantive value, has been hollowed out by selective justice and a political class willing to bend institutions to immediate needs. The evidence is not just in isolated cases, but in a pattern that has become the norm.

Defenders of the status quo will argue that justice has internal checks, that each case deserves individual assessment, and that magistrates should not be pilloried for unpopular decisions. I have heard, time and again, that judges are not to blame for verdicts that displease one camp or another. There is merit in this caution. Judicial independence is not negotiable. Yet when one observes a succession of decisions, each tending to favor the same political or economic bloc, the case for coincidence collapses. The example of the National Integrity Agency is instructive. ANI did not initiate proceedings in the case of Adrian Veștea, now prime minister-designate, whereas in comparable files against mayors outside the networks of influence, sanctions have come swiftly. The discrepancy is too consistent to dismiss as mere oversight.

The rule of law, as defined in European Union treaties, requires that no person or institution stand above the law. This is not abstract theory. Romania committed to these principles upon accession in 2007. In practice, the application is selective. Statutes and procedures are enforced with rigor against political outsiders, but bent or ignored when enforcement would inconvenience those at the core of power.

Each exception hardens into precedent. Each precedent, into system.

Recent months have delivered a sequence of events that, taken together, amount to a systematic assault on the very notion of the rule of law. This is not a matter of a single lapse or misjudgment. It is a strategy, deliberate or not, of undermining institutions, principles, and values that once enjoyed at least nominal consensus. June 18, already referred to as "Black Thursday," marked a turning point. Under the watch of President Dan, a government with a reformist agenda was dismissed. In the aftermath, efforts to construct a new parliamentary majority dragged on for weeks, fracturing society into two irreconcilable camps: one still attached to European values and reform, the other, a conservative and kleptocratic formation intent on preserving privilege at any cost.

The old left-right divide is obsolete. The true line of fracture now runs between reformists and conservatives, between those who still believe in rules and those intent on rewriting them for their own advantage. This cleavage cuts across parties, interests, and even long-standing personal alliances. Figures from nominally opposing parties find themselves aligned, depending on their attitude toward the rule of law.

The subordination of the judiciary to the conservative bloc is perhaps the most alarming development. President Dan's appointments to key institutions, criticized by civil society at the time, have borne fruit. The Superior Council of Magistracy recently issued a document condemning members of civil society and political parties for criticizing the judiciary. The logic has flipped. It is no longer the judiciary that must be transparent and fair, but citizens who become suspect for raising questions. Accountability, the core of democratic oversight, has been inverted.

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A recent decision by the National Audiovisual Council to revoke the license of a television station was quickly suspended by the Court of Appeal. In a separate episode, Parliament and the Government moved to make the expenditures and assets of RAPPS transparent. The same Court of Appeal, under the leadership of Liana Arsenie, blocked publication of those records. According to press reports, Arsenie acts on instructions from Lia Savonea, head of the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The cast of characters does not change. Neither do the results. The same names, the same networks, the same predictable outcomes.

The ruling conservative faction consolidates its grip. The National Liberal Party has entered a period of internal crisis. Party leadership moved to sanction members who deviated from the official line. Appeals to the Ilfov Tribunal were resolved the same day, a speed that is, if not unprecedented, then highly unusual. Suspension of the party's disciplinary measures was granted by presidential order, not on the merits, but on grounds of urgency. The court did not weigh guilt or innocence, only the supposed need for immediate intervention, as if national security were at stake. In reality, it was an internal party dispute, a contest between rival factions.

Against this background, prime minister-designate Adrian Veștea negotiates with representatives of extremist parties. The fact that these talks proceed without public outrage is telling. President Dan, once a vocal opponent of any collaboration with extremists, so much so that he preferred an alliance with the Social Democrats precisely to avoid such scenarios, now appears indifferent. The government majority, if it emerges, will rest on the support of marginal parties. Neither PNL, USR, nor UDMR back Veștea's bid for power.

The contrast in legal outcomes is striking when one compares the cases of local officials. Cristian Matei, mayor of Turda, was convicted for receiving 10,003 lei in dividends over four years from an association in which he had been a member a decade before assuming office. Spread over the period, the sum amounts to less than 210 lei per month. At the same time, Veștea sold a plot of land for 600,000 euros. The National Integrity Agency did not act. The disparity is not only quantitative, but qualitative: the system responds aggressively to minor infractions by outsiders, while major transactions by insiders pass without scrutiny.

One might object that the difference in treatment reflects differences in legal context, or that the facts of each case are unique. That is the standard defense. Yet the pattern is hard to ignore. The same agencies, the same courts, the same officials, time and again, deliver results that align with the interests of the dominant coalition. Where the law is clear, it is applied unevenly. Where discretion exists, it is exercised to favor the powerful.

The consequences of this drift are not abstract. The erosion of the rule of law affects anyone who depends on impartial institutions: business owners seeking fair competition, citizens demanding transparent governance, even officials who may one day find themselves on the wrong side of a factional shift. The chilling effect on civil society is palpable. When the Superior Council of Magistracy condemns public criticism, the message is clear. Questioning authority is itself a transgression. The same €10,003 threshold that triggered sanctions against Matei is ignored when the sum is sixty times higher and the recipient sits at the center of power.

Romania's accession to the European Union brought with it not only obligations, but also the hope that institutional norms would gradually converge with those of established democracies. Instead, the past decade has seen the entrenchment of a parallel system: one set of rules for the connected, another for everyone else. The veneer of legality remains. Statutes are cited, procedures followed, verdicts rendered. But the substance is gone. The rule of law is invoked when necessary to satisfy Brussels, then set aside when inconvenient.

There is no easy fix for this state of affairs. The mechanisms of internal judicial oversight, so often invoked, have themselves been captured. Civil society, once a bulwark against abuse, is now itself under suspicion. The press, with few exceptions, is seen as an instrument of factional warfare rather than as an independent check on power. When corrections are needed, such as after the Fritz verdict, they are withheld.

In the end, the problem is not that Romania lacks laws or institutions. It is that the application of both has become a matter of political calculation. The rule of law, in its full sense, requires more than formal compliance. It demands a culture of impartiality, and the will to apply principles even when doing so is inconvenient. At present, the evidence points in the opposite direction. The real tragedy is not the fate of any one official, but the normalization of a system in which justice is a tool, not a standard.