Dem I. Dobrescu (usual rendition of Demetru Ion Dobrescu; 1869 – 1948) was a Romanian left-wing politician who served as Mayor of Bucharest between February 1929 and January 1934. Biography Early life Born in Jilava to a Transylvanian family, he grew up in Văcărești in the outskirts of Bucharest. He studied at the Matei Basarab High School and then he studied law at the University of Bucharest, after which he moved to France, where he became a Doctor of law after defending his thesis L'évolution de L'Idée de Droit in 1894. After returning to Romania, he worked as a judge at the Iași Tribunal and then a prosecutor in Ilfov County Dobrescu then joined the Bucharest bar and, after World War I, became its dean and later, the president of Lawyers' Union. Alongside N. D. Cocea and others, he also defended Communist Party members during the 1922 Dealul Spirii Trial. In 1923, Dobrescu was part of the defense for Constantin Titel Petrescu, leader of the Federation of Romanian Socialist Parties, during a trial for alleged insults addressed to the Romanian Army; Petrescu was eventually acquitted. Earlier in the year, Dobrescu had joined Petrescu's Liga Drepturilor Omului (League for Human Rights), which voiced protests against measures taken by the National Liberal cabinet of Ion I. C. Brătianu; the League also included Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Constantin Mille, Victor Eftimiu, Nicolae L. Lupu, Constantin Costa-Foru, Grigore Iunian, Radu D. Rosetti, and Virgil Madgearu. Mayor of Bucharest Dobrescu was a member of the Communal Council of the Sector III ("Blue") and, following 1926 local elections, he became the mayor of the sector as a candidate for the National Peasants' Party (PNŢ). Following the formation of a new PNȚ government, an internal struggle began in Bucharest over the membership and mayors of the sectors and of Bucharest. For the mayor's office, the main candidates were Dobrescu and Gheorghe Gheorghian. After two months of struggles, on February 5, 1929, a royal decree was published, by which the councils were dissolved and, in their place, Bucharest was administered by an interim commission led by Dobrescu. After winning, he declared the purpose of the office to be "not just administrative in character, but also social", claiming that "we worked 50 years for the center [of the city], we should work 5 years for the outskirts". Consequently, he created a series of non-partisan comitete cetăţeneşti ("citizen committees"), which were to