Monica Luisa Macovei (; born 4 February 1959) is a Romanian politician, lawyer and former prosecutor, and former Member of the European Parliament from the European Conservatives and Reformists and formerly a member of the Romanian Democratic Liberal Party (PDL). She was the Minister of Justice of Romania in the first cabinet of Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu. In this position she was credited with implementing the justice reforms required for Romania to become a member state of the European Union. Macovei was also an independent candidate in Romania's 2014 presidential elections. Early career Monica Macovei graduated in 1982 with honors from the Law Faculty of the University of Bucharest; in 1994 she received a master's of law in comparative constitutional law from the University of the State of New York/Central European University. She has served as a lecturer in law at the University of Bucharest. She has also authored a number of books and articles on legal and human rights themes. Macovei was a prosecutor between 1983 and 1997, during the Communist and post-Communist periods. From 1997 to 2004 she was a lawyer with the Bucharest Bar. In 1997, Macovei was an Eisenhower Exchange Fellow, an honor awarded to "men and women of outstanding achievement in mid-career, who are expected to assume positions of influence and make a difference" in their home regions, countries, or globally. Civic activist Prior to her appointment as Justice Minister, Macovei was a civil society activist for political reform, democratization, and human rights in post-1989 Romania. She served from 2001-2004 as president of the Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania - The Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH) Macovei served as an expert/advisor to the Council of Europe, the European Roma Rights Center, the UN Development Program, the Open Society Institute, and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. She was a founding member of Transparency International-Romania. She conducted research on gender in Romanian law and on violence against women, among many other issues. As an activist, she spoke out for the need to reform Romanian justice and remove institutional protections for officials involved in corruption. She called attention to police brutality and impunity, continued political influence over the judiciary, and the lack of strong legal culture in Romania, among other issues. She represented over 20 plaintiffs before the European Court of Human Rights and trained over 1,000 law enforcement personnel on the rule of