It is a story about international adoptions, which in the 90s were made in impressive numbers and which also left their mark on Romania's image. At the time of the accession negotiations, from the beginning of the 2000s, Romania had to amend its legislation and close the endless series of sending orphaned children or children without opportunities across the borders. One of the most difficult conditions to fulfill was the stopping of international adoptions, and the rapporteur for Romania, Baroness Emma Nicholson, then invoked the "rule of law" that must be respected also regarding adoptions. Romania changed its vision, but the era of the 90s also left 404 international adoption files in the dark, which disappeared. Entirely.
On February 20, 1997, the leadership of the Bucharest Court, led by Judge Viorel Roș, notified the Police about the disappearance from the court archive of 248 civil files concerning international adoptions.
The then Minister of Justice ordered an extensive check at the Bucharest Court and the judicial inspectors of the higher court, the Bucharest Court of Appeal, found that 404 civil adoption files had disappeared: 173 from the period 1990-1993 and 231 files from the period 1994-1995 . Along with the files, several minutes of meetings from 1994-1995, meeting folders and record books disappeared.
"I asked for a check to be made and a report on the situation created. The report was made and after that I think a criminal complaint was also made. Unfortunately, as far as I can remember, the criminal investigation did not lead to any results, that is, it did not discover the perpetrators", Valeriu Stoica, former Minister of Justice, told us.