Radio România Internațional

Tag: MPs

September 12, 2024

RCA Romania has the most expensive civil liability insurance for car owners, RCA, in the region, roughly 220 Euros, although compensations have dropped by 9% – representatives of the Confederation of Authorized Operators and Transporters, COTAR, say. According to them the average RCA prices in Bulgaria is around 100 Euros, in Hungary 98 Euros and in Poland 120. COTAR representatives are blaming the situation on the Financial Supervisory Authority, whose representatives say the institution cannot intervene on the RCA price, which is based upon statistical data regarding compensations and damages paid in road accidents in the past years and other risk criteria.

STRIKE The Foreign Ministry in Bucharest has issued heads-up for the Romanians traveling to Belgium that a 24-hour strike has been announced on the Charleroi Airport, which is expected to cripple the airport’s operational capabilities. A series of flights are being cancelled and passengers are advised to check online the lists posted by various airlines. According to a communiqué issued by the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest, Romania’s embassy in Brussels has made available a hot line for the Romanian citizens in difficult, special and emergency situations.

HANDBALL The Romanian handball champions, Dinamo Bucharest, are making their debut tonight in the EHF Champions League in a match against the Danish vice-champions Fredericia HK. Dinamo was included in the Champions League’s Group A and it avoided the finalists of the recently ended season, the champion side Barcelona and the team which lost the finals Aalborg Handbold. The Romanian side will be up against Fuchse Berlin, Sporting Lisbon, Paris Saint-Germain Handball as well as Veszprem HC, presently coached by its former headcoach Xavi Pascual. In the women’s contests, Romania is being represented by three sides, which already played their first matches last weekend. The Romanian derby Gloria Bistrita versus CSM Bucharest ended 30-26 to Bistrita, while Rapid Bucharst secured a 32-27 home win against the double European champions Buducnost Podgorica.

LAW Parliament in Bucharest on Wednesday tackled some law amendments aimed at enabling the army to annihilate the suspect drones entering Romania’s territory. The talks involved the participation of MPs and representatives of the Ministry of Defence. Romanian MPs believe that some legislative amendments are needed in order to improve the response capabilities when unauthorized or suspect drones are entering the Romanian airspace. The talks were held after several Russian drones had entered the Romanian airspace in the past year on their way to targets in the neighboring Ukraine.

WEATHER In Romania’s northeastern and eastern regions temperatures are normal for this time of the year, whereas in the rest of the territory the weather is warm. Showers and thunderstorms are expected in most regions in the country’s east and north-east and on isolated areas in the north and center. The highs of the day are expected between 20 and 31 degrees Celsius with a noon reading in Bucharest of 21 degrees and a high of 29 degrees Celsius.

(bill)

12 September 2024
No more special pensions for the Romanian MPs

This is the last week of the present session of the Legislature in Bucharest, which decided not to go on holiday before finalizing some of the most sensitive bills – that on the elimination of the MPs special pensions and the reform of the public service pensions. The elimination of the special pensions for the MPs was endorsed on Monday with a landslide majority in a joint sitting of the two chambers, a sitting marked by speeches abounding in quotations from classical literature, ironies, cries, booing and bell ringing sounds. The aforementioned voting has a special significance for the entire political class, says the Liberals president, Nicolae Ciuca, while the interim president of the Chamber of Deputies, the Social-Democrat Alfred Simonis has described it as a first step towards the reform of all special pensions, which is also an objective in the countrys National Plan of Recovery and Resilience (PNRR).

Alfred Simonis: “We begin today with the first serious pension reform, the pensions of the MPs, which we dont tax, we dont cut, but we simply eliminate. We eliminate those, which are presently paid as well as those about to be paid in the absence of such a law. The special pensions, the accumulation of the pension and salary, unmet objectives in the National Plan of Recovery and Resilience, are priorities.”

Although the oppositions backed the bill, there were voices who cautioned the document could be declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court; Parliament had endorsed the same law two years ago, but former MPs notified the Constitutional Court, which ruled it as unconstitutional. Furthermore, USR leader, Cătălin Drulă, has recalled that…

Catalin Drula: “We are speaking about 700 beneficiaries of special pensions, the other 210 thousand special pensions remain untouched.”

We recall that Romania has several occupational categories, whose pensions arent exclusively based on the contributions of these employees to the state social insurances before retirement, like the rest of the citizens.

And for this reason, most of the Romanians believe that MPs, magistrates, servicemen, policemen, diplomats or pilots belong to an intangible privileged cast. For now the draft bill on the reform of the entire special pension system, among other things, provides for a gradual increase in the retirement age, at least 25 years of service for the magistrates, in order to be able to benefit from a public service pension or a 15% tax levied on sums above the medium gross salary.

The provisions are actually amendments proposed by the ruling MPs after the latest talks with representatives of the European Commission in order to comply with the PNRR commitments so that the country may not lose the related funds. The political groups in the ruling coalition have hailed the amendments, whereas the opposition says they do not actually reform the special pension system.

(bill)

27 June 2023
Social measures in Romania

Although there is a tendency to blame the economic and social situation in Romania exclusively on the conflict in neighboring Ukraine, the causes of the current problems that Romanians have to face are more numerous and go back to the distant past! Lets only remind of the two years of pandemic in which the economy stagnated more than it worked, other obstacles being the extension of the states of emergency or alert once every three months. And of the liberalization of the energy market, considered a hasty decision by some analysts, which had serious negative repercussions, especially on the most disadvantaged citizens. Inflation is breaking new records, and shops and agri-food markets have become, for some people, places for contemplating labels.

Considered one of the silent social strata of Romania, given their impossibility to intervene in any way to correct their material situation after a whole working life, pensioners from the public pension system have nothing to do but accept what the State offers them monthly, which, in many cases, is below the minimum necessary for a decent living. “Pensioners live on their pensions and it seems reasonable that the level of this pension should be adapted to the situation” said recently Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis, who added that it’s totally unfair to make only the pensioners pay the price of some crises.

However, the Romanian Government decided to grant pensioners with cumulated monthly incomes of less than 2,000 lei (about 400 euros) a single aid worth 700 lei (about 140 Euros). This aid will benefit only pensioners residing in the country, not those with a regular residence abroad, the Labor Ministry officials stated. On the other hand, the Senate, as the first notified chamber, adopted a governments emergency ordinance granting meal vouchers to all Romanians with low incomes: namely about 3 million citizens. The vouchers, worth about 50 Euros, will be used only for the purchase of basic food products. The postal distribution of the cards through which the financial aid will be granted will start next week, then the people will receive the promised money on the cards every two months.

If the senators of the ruling coalition welcomed the decision, those in opposition considered the amount as derisory, saying that, through this measure, the executive only gives back to the Romanians too small a part of the money it takes through taxes, prices for utilities, food and fuels. Nevertheless, all the MPs voted in favor of the decision. Finally, the Chamber of Deputies decided to increase the value of a meal ticket for employees from 20 to 30 lei, so as to compensate, at least partially, for the price hikes. The Chamber also agreed that childrens camps in the country may be paid for with the parents holiday vouchers. (LS)

9 June 2022
Social measures in Romania

Although there is a tendency to blame the economic and social situation in Romania exclusively on the conflict in neighboring Ukraine, the causes of the current problems that Romanians have to face are more numerous and go back to the distant past! Lets only remind of the two years of pandemic in which the economy stagnated more than it worked, other obstacles being the extension of the states of emergency or alert once every three months. And of the liberalization of the energy market, considered a hasty decision by some analysts, which had serious negative repercussions, especially on the most disadvantaged citizens. Inflation is breaking new records, and shops and agri-food markets have become, for some people, places for contemplating labels.

Considered one of the silent social strata of Romania, given their impossibility to intervene in any way to correct their material situation after a whole working life, pensioners from the public pension system have nothing to do but accept what the State offers them monthly, which, in many cases, is below the minimum necessary for a decent living. “Pensioners live on their pensions and it seems reasonable that the level of this pension should be adapted to the situation” said recently Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis, who added that it’s totally unfair to make only the pensioners pay the price of some crises.

However, the Romanian Government decided to grant pensioners with cumulated monthly incomes of less than 2,000 lei (about 400 euros) a single aid worth 700 lei (about 140 Euros). This aid will benefit only pensioners residing in the country, not those with a regular residence abroad, the Labor Ministry officials stated. On the other hand, the Senate, as the first notified chamber, adopted a governments emergency ordinance granting meal vouchers to all Romanians with low incomes: namely about 3 million citizens. The vouchers, worth about 50 Euros, will be used only for the purchase of basic food products. The postal distribution of the cards through which the financial aid will be granted will start next week, then the people will receive the promised money on the cards every two months.

If the senators of the ruling coalition welcomed the decision, those in opposition considered the amount as derisory, saying that, through this measure, the executive only gives back to the Romanians too small a part of the money it takes through taxes, prices for utilities, food and fuels. Nevertheless, all the MPs voted in favor of the decision. Finally, the Chamber of Deputies decided to increase the value of a meal ticket for employees from 20 to 30 lei, so as to compensate, at least partially, for the price hikes. The Chamber also agreed that childrens camps in the country may be paid for with the parents holiday vouchers. (LS)

9 June 2022
Parliamentarians’ special pensions, under debate

A recurrent topic in recent years, the MP’s special pensions have yet again become an attention-grabbing issue these days in Romania, where the election campaign is in full swing ahead of the ballot day decided for December 6. Initially, only the magistrates benefitted from the special public service pensions, known as old-age emoluments. Subsequently, other categories lawfully benefitted from special pensions, among which MPs, diplomats or the aeronautic personnel. The special pensions quantum is counted based on an algorithm which is by far more generous than for the rest of the Romanians, so at the level of the society, the special pensions issue is the main bone of contention. According to all sorts of formulas, the recipients cash hefty sums of money paid from the state social insurance budget, that is according to one’s own contribution to the system proper, but also from the state budget. Furthermore, special pensions beneficiaries’ vesting period is the shortest from among Romania’s other professional categories.

The Save Romania Union (USR) MPs, in opposition, have announced their decision to resign from Parliament before their term in office ends in December, so as not to benefit from the lawfully stipulated special pensions, an issue they have challenged all along so far. Prominent members of the main opposition party, The Social Democratic Party, did the same, their leader, Marcel Ciolacu, included. A mere smokescreen, that is what some of the other politicians said about this move.

The politruks of the day are now competing in the uselessly-populist relinquishment of the special pensions according to senator Serban Nicolae, a former member of the Social Democratic Party and a current candidate of the Romanian Ecological Party for the December 6 election. Members of the People’s Movement Party have said resigning from the job does not solve the problem. People’s Movement Party members have also called on Marcel Ciolacu, who is still the president of the Chamber of Deputies, to include the draft law they have initiated on the day’s agenda, a draft law targeting the elimination of the special pensions, which has already been passed by the Senate.

Marcel Ciolacu pledged he would summon the joint permanent Bureaus, in a bid to eliminate the MPs’ special pensions, on condition that the resulting sums of money be used for the doubling of children’s allowance. The National Liberal Party does not accept this privilege for the MPs, that of the special pensions, being the constant advocate of the contribution-based pensions. The National Liberal Party views the repealing of Article 11 of the Status of senators and deputies as the only solution for the eliminations of MP’s special pensions. According to the law, for the incomplete terms in office, the MP’s old-age emolument is counted in proportion with the exercise of the term in office proper, but no less than one parliamentarian’s term in office. So the parliamentarians exercising their first term in office, should they resign, will not benefit from the special pension, whereas for an MP who has a full term in office already, their resignation will not be effective under the same proportion. The parliamentarians who are in such a situation will benefit from the special pension for their entire term in office and will receive a quantum for their second term in office. The special pension is not granted by default. For the MPs who do not want to benefit from the special pension, all they have to do is avoid claiming it.

(Translation by Eugen Nasta)

25 November 2020
Tax on special pensions, disputed

On Wednesday, the Chamber of Deputies passed a bill that introduced taxes on pension benefits. The bill had already been endorsed by the Senate in 2019, and it was backed by all parliamentary parties. It is meant to restore social justice, the MPs argued, given that disparities between the regular pensions and the pension benefits laid out in special laws are, in certain cases, outrageous.

Perhaps the most insistently covered case is the 15,000-euro pension—the biggest in Romania—paid to a former communist prosecutor who was the commander of a prison. At the opposite pole, the average pension in Romania is little over 250 euros.

From now on, according to an amendment introduced by the Social Democrat Party and Save Romania Union in opposition and by the Liberals in power, “pension benefits of up to roughly 410 euros are tax-free, those of up to 1,450 euros are subject to a 10% tax, while for pensions of over 1,450 euros, there will be an 85% tax charged for the amounts that exceed this threshold.

Beneficiaries of these so-called special pensions in Romania include, among other categories, judges and prosecutors, MPs and mayors. Military pensions also have a special status.

The bill passed on Wednesday did not include Senators and Deputies however, because this required a change in the statutes of MPs. And on Thursday, Parliament reviewed a bill modifying the Fiscal Code and approved the progressive taxation of MP pensions.

Opposing the parliamentary majority, the Save Romania floor group tried in vain to introduce a bill discarding special pensions for MPs, and explained that progressive taxation of these pensions does not need to be voted by the joint chambers of Parliament. This will lead to the Constitutional Court dismissing the law, on grounds that the same bill was actually voted on twice—once by the Chamber of Deputies as a decision-making body, and once again by the joint Chambers as a Fiscal Code amendment, Save Romania Union president Dan Barna argued.

He explained that “this is just like a movie where you shove a pack of dynamite at the constitutional foundation of this law, making sure that the Constitutional Court will reject it.

Conversely, the Social Democrats and the Liberals argued that there are Constitutional Court rulings that require joint Chambers votes on amendments to the statutes of MPs. Both parties emphasised that the law ensures social justice, and voiced surprise at the opposition of Save Romania Union.

Quite predictably, the Constitutional Court has been notified, by the High Court of Cassation and Justice and the Ombudsman. The supreme court says the bill overlooks successive relevant Court rulings, that the Higher Council of Magistrates has not been consulted and that a number of principles are breached, including the fair taxation principle and the independence of judges.

Last month, the Constitutional Court dismissed another bill abrogating special pensions, following notifications filed by the supreme court and the Ombudsman.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

19 June 2020
June 4, 2020

COVID-19 Romania has so far confirmed roughly 20,000
Covid infections. Out of these around 14 thousand people have been cured and
left hospitals, while 1299 have lost their lives. 114 out of the 3100 Romanian
nationals who have been confirmed infected abroad died. Health Minister Nelu
Tataru on Wednesday said that the COVID-19 test aimed at confirming people’s immunization
to the new virus would be carried out on 29 thousand subjects during the months
of June, July and August. According to the Romanian official, because a vaccine
cannot be made earlier than the first half of the next year, compulsory
vaccination cannot be introduced without a test period of two, three seasons.

MEETING
The Romanian government has
again convened in Bucharest for a new round of talks over the measures aimed at
jump-starting the economy and preserving jobs. A programme on supporting the big
companies through guaranteed loans is high on the talks agenda. Prime Minister
Ludovic Orban has announced he will use all the instruments available to back
investments, including through the creation of an investment fund made up of
budget resources or European funds if permitted. Prime Minister Orban on Wednesday
held talks with representatives of the Coalition for Romania’s Development over
the latest developments in the IMM Invest programme, the plans aimed at
boosting the economy and attracting funds from the interior and from abroad.

US Protest rallies in the USA caused by the
death of a black man in police custody proved to be quieter on Wednesday after
several days, which saw acts of vandalism and rioting. The latest events had prompted
President Donald Trump to threaten to send in the military to quell the growing
civil unrest. In his latest statement however president Trump says he won’t
need to send in troops after the US Defence Secretary has opposed the
president’s threatened use of the Insurrection Act to allow active duty troops
to be deployed in American cities. The UN rights chief, Michelle Bachelet
insisted the grievances at the heart of the protests that have erupted in
hundreds of US cities needed to be heard and addressed if the country was to
move forward. Solidarity rallies with the anti-racist protests in the USA have
continued in Europe as well.

AMENDMENTS Children in Romania are going to be given access to sanitary
education and not to sex education and in order to be able to attend these classes
they need parental approval, the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest has ruled
amending a previous law on child protection and their rights. The aforementioned
amendments have been made upon the proposal of some MPs from the left-wing
opposition PSD and from the ruling National Liberal Party. The third ruling
party USR has denounced the initiative, arguing that Romania has the largest
number of abortions among minors. According to a survey made by Save the
Children NGO, six out of ten teenage moms have never had any access to information about
sex education or healthy reproduction.

(translated by bill)

4 June 2020
Romania’s government between motions and ordinances

Three months since its coming to
power, the National-Liberal cabinet led by Ludovic Orban is today taking its
first major test against a censure motion tabled by the opposition PSD and
UDMR.

The interim head of the Social
Democrats (PSD), Marcel Ciolacu, has voiced his conviction the present motion
will be adopted by senators and deputies.

The document must be endorsed by
233 MPs, which means half plus one out of the total number of the elected MPs,
and the text has so far been signed by only 208 PSD and UDMR MPs.

Under the title ‘the Orban/PNL
government – the privatization of the Romanian democracy’, the document
initiators are accusing the government of violating democratic principles by
assuming responsibility for returning to the two-round election of mayors only
months ahead the upcoming election.

According to the leftist
opposition, the Orban cabinet should immediately step down for having violated
Constitutional Court rulings as well as recommendations from the European
institutions out of political reasons and not in the interest of citizens.
Backed by their USR and PMP partners, the Liberals say that coming back to the
two-round system increases the legitimacy and representation of the mayors and
is wanted by 80% of the Romanians.

Prime Minister Orban believes the
censure motion is unlikely to get Parliament endorsement. The cabinet has also
taken measures for a worst-case scenario. Last night they passed a series of
emergency ordinances, which a sacked government with limited prerogatives could
not promote.

One of the aforementioned documents
cuts the deadline for election calling down to 45 days. It also regulates
national voting on supplementary lists and extends the period of voting for the
Romanian voters abroad to three days. Under the same regulations, the number of
MPs representing the Romanians abroad has doubled to 12.

According to analysts, right-wing
parties, already the main favourites in the opinion polling, are thus
increasing their chances because the Romanians abroad are usually voting against
the Social Democrats, as the latter had constantly hindered their voting in the
previous election rounds.

Sacking the Orban cabinet would be
a first step towards early election as the PNL, USR and president Klaus
Iohannis want but in order for these to take place, Parliament will have to
turn down two Prime Minister proposals. Analysts believe that a Parliament
reshuffle is necessary because the present configuration with 40% PSD and the
22% PNL no longer reflects the voters present options.

(translated by bill)

5 February 2020
Legislative regulations contested

Romania’s new Liberal government
led by Ludovic Orban, which came to power in November upon the sacking of
Viorica Dancila’s PSD cabinet through a no-confidence vote, has proved its
vulnerability. The Liberals, who have only 20% MPs, have soon realized that
even the backing they can get from their USR and PMP partners may not allow
them to promote their projects.

Depending on the punctual and
selective support of a conjectural majority, the Executive in Bucharest
preferred to repeatedly assume responsibility for a series of legislative
amendments. The latest, on returning to the two-round voting system for mayors,
has sparked off debates once again.

As other voices in Romania’s
political life and civil society, Prime Minister Orban argues that the latest
amendments to voting legislation has been imposed by the necessity to increase
the mayors’ legitimacy. The present system, under which the candidate who
musters the largest number of votes in the first round wins the election, led
to strange situations as it happened in Galati, south-eastern Romania, where
the present mayor was voted by only 9% of the voters.

The Social-Democrats (PSD) have
blocked the draft in the special Parliament committee and have made public
their intention to table a censure motion, a move also backed by the Democratic
Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, which wants to preserve its political
monopoly in numerous cities and towns in Transylvania.

The PSD interim leader Marcel
Ciolacu says the Prime Minister shouldn’t have come before Parliament to assume
responsibility, after the Constitutional Court had already ruled the procedure
as unconstitutional when referring to documents under debates by the
Legislature. Ciolacu has added that if the censure motion fails to get the
right endorsement, the PSD will notify the Court.

The Social Democrats have also
reported the issue to the Venice Commission but the European Parliament has
turned down their request that the issue be discussed in plenary session in Strasbourg.

Another hot issue these days proves
to be the abrogation of the so-called special pensions, which is currently
opposing politicians to magistrates. On Tuesday, the Chamber of Deputies passed
with a land-sliding majority of 247 yes-votes and none against, the elimination
of special pensions for MPs, judges, prosecutors and the auxiliary specialized
personnel of courts and prosecutor offices.

The move also affects the civil
servants with special statutes, members of the diplomatic and consular corps,
of the Constitutional Court as well as aviation personnel. All these categories
have benefited from pensions exceeding their work contributions, which were 15
times bigger than average pensions in Romania.

Judges with the High Court of
Cassation and Justice as well as the Higher Council of Magistracy decided to
notify the Constitutional Court. According to the magistrates the law on
scrapping special pensions would be entirely unconstitutional, brutally
infringing on the principles of democracy and inamovility of judges.

(translated by bill)

30 January 2020
Green light for the national medical qualification exam

The national medical qualification
exam in Romania will take place in early December this year while the one next
year has been scheduled for November. Romanian president Klaus Iohannis has
promulgated the legislative amendments urgently endorsed by Parliament.

The decision-making Chamber of
Deputies has endorsed this necessary law with a landslide majority but several
amendments have been made to the initial law adopted by the Senate. Under the
aforementioned law, the methodology for the national medical qualification exam
is to be approved by the Health Ministry in Romania.

Amendments to the initial law
endorsed by the Senate have eliminated the obligation for this exam to be taken
in three years since graduation. Under the new law, candidates who passed the
residency exam but failed the specialty exam can still find employment in medical
units currently facing shortage of personnel. Here is Liberal MP Antoneta
Ionita with more on the new legislation.

Antoneta Ionita: There was a
team work, we worked on the text and found solutions, and major amendments have
been brought to the text passed by the Senate; one of these being that the
total number of graduates must at least equal the number of graduates from the
specialized faculties of General Medicine, Pharmacy and Dental Surgery.

The Social Democrats have asked
that in the future the methodology must also be endorsed by the Education
Minister. Here is Social Democratic MP Camelia Gavrila

Camelia Gavrila: The Social
Democratic MPs have initiated and supported this extremely important initiative
for the present generation trying to settle a political crisis in 2019. We
believe that the Ministry of Education must get involved in the national
medical qualification exam, which is a form of postgraduate training.

Initially scheduled for November 17th,
the national medical qualification exam has been re-scheduled for December 8th,
because the Education Ministry doesn’t have a minister to sign the three
decrees under which the exam is unfolding.

The new legislative amendments come
against the backdrop of the present political crisis, after the cabinet led by
Social-Democrat Viorica Dancila had been sacked through a no-confidence vote on
October 10th and a new cabinet is to come to power under the guidance
of Liberal Ludovic Orban provided it musters Parliament support. Romania is presently
facing a shortage of doctors, who preferred to leave the country for a better
pay abroad.

1 November 2019
Decisions and recommendations regarding Romania’s justice system

Since 2007, the European Union has used its Cooperation and Verification Mechanism as a means to monitor the Romanian justice system. The latest report, issued in autumn, shows that progress has been made in the field, but it also underlines Brussels’s concern over the global pace of reform, which was rather flat in 2017.

The same concern has been voiced this week in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), according to which Romania has made little progress in implementing the Group’s recommendations with regard to preventing and combating corruption among parliamentarians, judges and prosecutors.

More precisely, Bucharest has fully complied with just 2 of the 13 recommendations included in a previous assessment, has implemented only partially 4 recommendations and totally ignored 7. GRECO has stressed that the main initiative adopted in Romania with regard to parliamentarians was a Code of Conduct, in October 2017, with the aim of regulating the issue of gifts and other benefits received by MPs, as well as the management of conflicts of interest.

The anti-corruption group has also underlined the fact that the provisions included in the Code are too general and its rule of application rather inconsistent, therefore the code cannot provide a 100% satisfactory framework.

Another cause for concern for GRECO is the legislative process as such, given the ongoing controversies and accusations telling of insufficient consultations, excessive use of expedited procedures and lack of transparency.

GRECO has stressed the fact that the year 2017, against the background of high tensions triggered by the political power’s intention to amend the justice laws, was marked by a number of proposals and counter-proposals regarding appointments and disciplinary procedures, some of which were perceived as an attempt to undermine the independence of the Romanian judiciary.

One of the arguments put forward by the Social Democratic Party and its junior ruling partner, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats was that, in their current form, the laws left plenty of room for abuse on prosecutors’ and judges’ part.

In order to guarantee the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial, the Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that the evidence obtained illegally and declared null in a criminal trial must be removed from the case’s files. According to the Constitutional Court, the permanent access of a judge to evidence declared null would bring to their attention information that might influence them as to the potential guilt or innocence of the defendant. Once declared null, such evidence can no longer be used in trying the case.

19 January 2018
February 1, 2017 UPDATE

ORDINANCE Romanian president Klaus Iohannis on
Wednesday sent to Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu a letter asking him to
abrogate the emergency ordinance on amending the Penal and Penal Procedure
Codes the government adopted on Tuesday night. The president believes the
Executive’s move has deep negative effects on the functioning of the rule of
law, the anti-graft fight and the integrity of public jobs. Also on Wednesday,
the Higher Council of the Magistrates (CSM) decided to notify the
Constitutional Court on an institutional conflict between the state
authorities. President Iohannis has held talks with CSM members on this issue.
According to the president, the magistrates have been outraged by the way in
which the government has addressed such a sensitive issue, the amending of the
penal legislation through an emergency ordinance at night and without the CSM’s
notification. The opposition parties, the National Liberal Party and the USR, on
Wednesday tabled a censure motion in Parliament under the title The Grindeanu
government – the government of national defiance. Don’t legalize theft in
Romania. MPs from the People’s Movement Party said they would join the
initiative. Romanian capital Bucharest has again seen a series of protest
rallies against the government ordinance. On Tuesday night thousands took to
the streets of Bucharest and other Romanian cities to protest the Executive’s
decision.

REACTION The head of the European Commission
in Brussels, Jean-Claude Juncker, and First Vice-President, Frans Timmermans,
have told the government in Bucharest that the anti-graft fight must advance
and not be undermined. They have called into attention the fact that the
irreversibility of the progress in the anti-graft fight is essential to allow
the Commission to take into consideration the gradual elimination of monitoring
Romania through the Mechanism of Cooperation and Verification. The German
government said it was looking with some concern into the latest developments
in Romania and that by issuing the ordinance on amending the Penal Code, the
Romanian government has ignored the major concerns voiced by the Romanian
president, the country’s legal system and a large part of its population’. The
American Chamber of Commerce in Romania, AmCham, has voiced profound disappointment
towards the procedure of adopting the provisions and effects of the emergency
ordinance on amending the Penal Codes. Its adoption in a non-transparent manner
in spite of the viewpoints and recommendations given by competent institutions
are discrediting the executive, at the same time sending a strong signal of
distrust and uncertainty both at the domestic and foreign level, the AmCham
said.

BUDGET Romanian MPs can bring amendments
to the draft law on the state budget and social insurances in 2017 until Friday
morning while the budget-finance committees are to convene on Saturday and
Sunday to issue a report on these two drafts. On Monday, the Senate and the
Chamber of Deputies will be hosting debates on the drafts and the final voting
is due on Tuesday. The draft state budget in 2017 has been drawn up in keeping
with a 5.2% economic growth and a 3% deficit of the GDP. The government has
forecast an inflation rate below 1.4% and an unemployment rate of 4.3%.
According to finance minister Viorel Stefan, special heed will be paid to
investment, healthcare, education and infrastructure.

1 February 2017