YESTERDAY Adrian Năstase, Romania's prime minister between 2000 and 2004, became the country's first head of government in the post-communist era to be convicted of corruption. It was a long time coming.

Handing Mr Năstase a two-year prison sentence, the judges ruled that he had used a publicly funded conference of construction companies as a front to raise cash for his unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2004.

This, however, was a minor charge compared to some of the other corruption accusations that have dogged Mr Năstase, all of which he denies. "Năstase seven houses", a reference to his multiple residences, was just one of the nicknames bestowed on him by the press.

Mr Năstase was raised in the communist school of politics, and it showed. During his time in office state-run television and radio stations were obliged to follow a pro-governmental line. Newspapers that printed incriminating stories found their entire circulation had been bought up before they hit the news-stands. Mr Năstase took part in huge hunting sprees that rivalled any of Ceauşescu's, and his two wives were both from the communist nomenklatura.

Mr Năstase's truculence in the face of opposition was legendary. When asked about the significant wealth that he accumulated during his time in office, he invited his detractors to count his balls instead.

Despite such outbursts, Mr Năstase, a much-published professor of international law, cultivated the image of a bourgeois intellectual. This helped pave the way for his rival, the current president Traian Băsescu, whose populist appeal and working-class idiom were a world away from the aloof Mr Năstase. The promise of clamping down on corruption helped Mr Băsescu to defeat Mr Năstase in 2004.

Mr Năstase is the most prominent Romanian politician to be taken down by Romania's National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA). Does this mean that Romania is finally taking the fight against corruption, so often urged on it by the European Union, seriously? The protesters who are braving temperatures of -15 degrees in Bucharest's University Square wouldn't say so. Many of them see little difference between the corruption of the Năstase days and the Romania of 2012.

Mr Năstase, who plans to appeal against his conviction, says that he is a victim of political harrassment, and that Mr Băsescu and the head of the DNA, Daniel Morar, wanted him out of the way. The EU has indeed repeatedly chastised Romania for its politicised judicial system, and Mr Năstase's conviction is undeniably a boon for the besieged Mr Băsescu. The president has a reputation for seeking to bring corruption charges against his opponents.

Others might cite Mr Năstase's loss of clout within his own party as a factor in his downfall. Some members of his Social Democratic Party will certainly be rejoicing. Unless he wins his appeal, Mr Năstase will not be able to hold public office or serve as party president for four years; good news for his many rivals within the party he once dominated.

Mr Năstase may not even serve his jail term; he has promised to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. Yet although his sentence is relatively lenient (others indicted in the same case got six or seven-year stretches), what matters is that a former prime minister has been shown to be within the reach of the law. With luck he might stand as a cautionary tale for a political class around which the stench of graft has yet to lift.