After the issue garnered a ton of media attention around the world, the Romanian Justice Minister used her enhanced powers* to eliminate the “write a book, get out of jail more quickly” system:

Romania says it is changing a law that allowed prisoners to reduce their sentences by writing books.

Convicts could cut 30 days off their jail terms if they published a work of literature or science.

Justice Minister Raluca Pruna said abuse of the system had spiraled out of control, and the law was being changed by emergency decree. Last year, convicts published more than 300 books – some churned out several books in record time.

Actually, the situation is far worse. If you speak Romanian, you can read how total meatheads like Dan Voiculescu churned out book after book, and how a number of university professors got paid to “endorse” these “works of literature”.

Sigh… as usual with Romania, a noble idea gets totally destroyed by morons due to a complete misunderstanding of basic human nature.

* – Although I’m sure a lot of people will endorse Justice Minister Pruna eliminating this loophole, the abuse of “emergency legislation” is a hallmark from the Victor Ponta era. It also completely bypasses normal legislative procedure. Considering that the parliament passed this law, it really should be up to them to amend the law, not depend on emergency decrees from a minister.