The process of selecting a candidate to head Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate ( DNA) will be restarted as all candidacies filed by the July 23 deadline have been rejected, the justice ministry said on July 27.

Four prosecutors had submitted their candidacies, after earlier in July Romanian President Klaus Iohannis finally signed the controversial decree dismissing former DNA head Laura Codruta Kovesi, as requested by the Constitutional Court at the end of May.

“In the selection process, it has been assessed that none of the candidates meets the necessary requirements to be nominated for the DNA chief prosecutor post,” the justice ministry said in a statement.

“Under the management programme or during the interview, none of the candidates has provided enough background elements based on the analysis of the current situation which would later allow an objective and transparent assessment process of managerial performance,” the ministry added.

All four candidacies were submitted on July 23. They were filed by Florentina Mirica, the head of the DNA's anticorruption department, Marius Iacob, deputy chief prosecutor of the DNA, Elena Grecu, a department head within the DNA, and Cristian Lazar from the general prosecutor’s office.

The new selection process will be carried out between August 6 and September 6.

Unnamed sources told Capital.ro that the rejection of all the candidacies had been decided long before. According to its sources, the head of the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD), Liviu Dragnea, who has been sentenced by a first court to three and a half years in prison for instigation to abuse of office, reportedly decided that the procedure should be delayed until mid-September, when Iohannis would have endorse new legislation which envisages a much smaller role for the president in the appointment procedure.

According to current legislation, the appointment of the DNA head is made by the president, who can reject the nominations made by the justice minister. However, when new legislation comes into force, the president will be able to reject the justice minister’s nomination only once.

The same view seems to be shared by the leader of the opposition Save Romania Union, Dan Barna, who said that Toader seems be delaying the appointment procedure until the president will endorse the law on the magistrates status, so that the “DNA will become a ring to Dragnea and Tariceanu’s keys,” News.ro reported.

Under Kovesi’s management the institution achieved important results in fighting corruption, indicting and sending to prison former MPs, ministers and mayors. Last year alone, the DNA sent to trial 997 defendants, including three ministers, a former head of the Chamber of Deputies, and six MPs.