Nicușor Dan posthumously awarded Marius Harosa, the lawyer who represented free of charge the organizations that challenged the mining project at Roșia Montană

President Nicusor Dan announced on Thursday, November 12, in Dublin, that he had posthumously awarded lawyer Marius Liviu Harosa the National Order of the “Star of Romania,” at the rank of Knight. The distinction recognizes his contribution to defending Roșia Montană and the public interest.

Marius Harosa died on November 10, at the age of 52. According to the president, the lawyer represented free of charge, for more than two decades, the organizations that challenged the Roșia Montană mining project. Nicusor Dan described him as the “legal leader” of the movement to protect the locality and said that he had been involved in several dozen lawsuits, which were won, according to the head of state.

Nicusor Dan compared the protests and civic efforts to save Roșia Montană with the 1990 University Square movement, considering them among the most important manifestations of civil society since the Revolution. The president called the lawyer’s death “a great loss.”

Marius Harosa was a lawyer with the Cluj Bar Association and an associate professor at the Faculty of Law of Babeș-Bolyai University. He graduated from the Faculty of Law as valedictorian and earned his doctorate in 2008, graduating Magna cum laude. Through the lawsuits concerning Roșia Montană, he contributed to the annulment of certain administrative acts and to the protection of the heritage and environment in the Apuseni Mountains.