Radio România Internațional

Tag: pardon bill

  • May 4, 2017 UPDATE

    May 4, 2017 UPDATE

    STATE VISIT – PM Sorin Grindeanu said in Jerusalem on Thursday that Romania remained firm in supporting the fight against terrorism. In a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, Grindeanu said the terror attacks in Europe were alarming and mentioned Romanian citizens had also been among the victims. On the other hand, PM Grindeanu said Israel was Romanias closest ally and partner in the region, with the diplomatic ties between the 2 countries spanning nearly 70 years. The Romanian Prime Minister reiterated Romanias commitment to establish a Jewish History and Holocaust Museum. In turn, Netanyahu said the visit of his counterpart continues the great friendship between the 2 countries. During the visit, two bilateral documents were signed, a declaration on cutting international roaming fees and a joint statement on cooperation in the fields of electricity and natural gas transportation, research, development and innovation, high-tech and investments. The Romanian official also had talks with President Reuven Rivlin and visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.




    JUDICIARY – The Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) Thursday dismissed as inadmissible a notification filed by the Ombudsman concerning an article that denies the access to government posts for convicted criminals. The Court found that the arguments put forth in the notification filed by Ombudsman Victor Ciorbea are either matters of interpretation and enforcement of the law by the relevant authorities, or elements of law-making that fall within the powers of Parliament. Law no. 90 of 2001 on the organisation and functioning of the government and ministries, says that only individuals who have not been found guilty in criminal cases and are not in an incompatibility case may be members of the government. The Court was notified after the Chamber of Deputies Speaker Liviu Dragnea was unable to get nominated for prime minister because of this article, although the Social Democratic Party he is heading won the December 2016 parliamentary election. Dragnea received a 2-year suspended sentence in a vote fraud case regarding the 2012 referendum on the impeachment of then President Traian Basescu.




    PARDON BILL – The Senates judicial committee Thursday rolled back Wednesdays decision, dismissing all amendments to the Governments bill on collective pardon, whereby sentences for some acts of corruption could be written off. According to the amendments passed on Wednesday, bribe taking and giving, as well as influence peddling, were on a list of crimes that would be written off provided the inmate commits to covering the damages suffered by the state. Hundreds of people protested in Bucharest and other large cities against these amendments. Protesters vented their anger at politicians, whom they see as deeply corrupt. The Government, who initiated the draft law on collective pardon, as well as the Chamber of Deputies Speaker and Social-Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea have argued against pardoning acts of corruption. Dragnea announced that the bill, whose final text would not pardon corruption offences, would be fine-tuned in a meeting of the Social Democrats National Executive Committee. Authorities see the bill on collective pardon as a possible solution to prison overcrowding. The European Court of Human Rights has called on Bucharest authorities to come up with a set of measures to improve detention conditions.



    MINORITY RIGHTS – The Romanian Foreign Minister, Teodor Melescanu, said on Thursday in Bucharest that guaranteeing the rights of ethnic minorities is necessary to ensure stability, security and good neighbourhood in the region. While attending a conference on responsible governance, he said Romania was probably one of the European countries with the most developed regulations on protecting national minority rights.



    CINEMA – The French actor Alain Delon will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Transylvania International Film Festival, which will take place in Cluj-Napoca between June 2 and 11. According to organisers, the award will be handed out on June 10, in a ceremony hosted by the National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca. On the day before, the 1981 film “Pour la peau dun flic, starring and directed by Alain Delon, will be screened in honour of the French actor.




    CULTURAL HERITAGE – The U.S. Ambassador to Bucharest, Hans Klemm, donated 59,300 US dollars to the Superior Consistory of the Evangelic Church Sibiu under the special U.S. Department of State program called the Ambassador Fund for Cultural Preservation. The grant is designed to help restore the Medieval Fortified Churches of Movile and Agarbiciu (Sibiu County) and Daia (Mures County). On Thursday, Ambassador Hans Klemm and Bishop Reinhard Guib held a ceremony at the fortified medieval church in the village of Movile, where Ambassador Klemm said: “Our cultural heritage is a reminder of the contributions and historical experiences of humanity. The medieval fortified churches of Transylvania are monuments to Europes cultural heritage. Local officials, representatives of the Evangelical Church, of the Fortified Churches Foundation, of the Democratic Forum of Germans in Transylvania, archaeologists and construction experts were present at the ceremony.




    FRENCH ELECTION – The centrist candidate in the French presidential election Emmanuel Macron filed a legal complaint after his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen implied he had an offshore account in the Bahamas. Macron strengthened his position as a frontrunner in Sundays second presidential ballot after the televised debate he attended jointly with his opponent Marine Le Pen. This was the only debate held for the two rounds, and the two contenders traded harsh words and even insults. For the first time in Frances post-war history, the candidates of the traditional right and left wings failed to qualify to the presidential second round. Defeated in the first round by Macron, Le Pen labelled him “the representative of wild globalization and criticized him for his superficial approach to terrorism. Macron said Le Pen is a dangerous nationalist feeding on Frances suffering. The French and international media writes the debate was brutal and violent, with the two contenders verbally abusing each other unlike never before in the history of presidential debates in this country.


  • Romanian Justice in the Spotlight Again

    Romanian Justice in the Spotlight Again


    In February this year, hundreds of thousands of scandalized Romanians took to the streets to take part in the largest rallies Romania has seen since the fall of communism in 1989. Soon after being sworn in, the government, made up of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), tried to grant collective pardon and amend the criminal codes through emergency decrees. After the protesters discourse was publicly shared by the right-of-center opposition, the media and Romanias western partners, the Government members felt cornered and had to eventually withdraw the decrees. Nevertheless, the public opinion continues to suspect that the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats plan to exonerate from criminal liability high-level politicians and decision-makers with the central and local administration.



    On Sunday evening, fresh protests against the Government and Parliament were held in the capital Bucharest and several other cities, as the Romanian MPs are currently debating a pardon bill, initiated by the Social Democrat senator Serban Nicolae. In Bucharest, around three thousand people expressed their outrage at this bill, which pardons certain acts of corruption. Protesters have denounced what they see as the politicization of the Constitutional Court, which has recently ruled that the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) exceeded their attributions when investigating the way in which the emergency decree amending the criminal codes was adopted.



    Protesters have again called on the Government to resign:


    “This Government should leave because they made changes aimed at fooling the people.”


    “I no longer want a political class that represents itself or decision makers who make a career out of politics”.


    “When you finally relax because you think that they eventually understood what this is about, here comes senator Serban Nicolae, who deplores the sad life of detainees. You could be easily fooled if you didnt know what he is really after. I wonder which is the politicians priority? Have they ever stepped into an oncology hospital? Honestly, what I really want is for this government to resign.”



    In another move, the new Justice Minister Tudorel Toader, appointed after the author of the emergency decrees, his predecessor Florin Iordache had to resign, pleads for transparency in decision making, in keeping with the Constitution and the EU standards. Toader says that the Bucharest authorities are making efforts to lift the European Commissions monitoring of the Romanian justice system.



    “We are still under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. We want to lift this monitoring and we can only do that by having a transparent decision-making mechanism. We can only do that by adopting regulations in keeping with the constitutional standards, through judicial regulations that are in line with the standards of the Venice Commission.”



    The Justice Minister has also announced he will hold talks with the General Prosecutor Augustin Lazar and with the DNA chief Laura Codruta Kovesi on the investigation regarding the government emergency decree. Minister Toader has said that, in the following two weeks, he will also analyze the activity of the General Prosecutors Office. Toader did not rule out the possibility of having the two chief prosecutors dismissed. Such decision, however, risks sparking large-scale protests again, pundits have warned.


    (Translated by Elena Enache)



  • Justice in Romania under the spotlight

    Justice in Romania under the spotlight

    The EC report published on January 25 says the political factor in particular must make efforts to ensure an efficient legal system and recommends the implementation of a robust and independent system for the appointment of top-level prosecutors and clear provisions with regard to the creation of a code of ethics for parliamentarians and the mutual respect between institutions, while also noting that parliamentarians must respect the independence of the legal system.


    What would that report look like if issued now? This is an appropriate question considering that now, less than a week since the document was made public, the new Grindeanu government adopted a controversial emergency ordinance amending the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, in spite of massive street protests, attended by tens of thousands of people. The new emergency ordinance stipulates the decriminalisation of the abuse of office if the damage caused falls below 200,000 lei. It also decriminalises the offence of aiding the offender. The ordinance stipulates that the offence of aiding the offender is also decriminalised if the act is made by a family member, up to a second-degree kin. The Grindeanu government has also drafted a pardon bill, which will be sent to Parliament, in an emergency procedure, says the justice minister. Florin Iordache says the decisions have been made due to overcrowding in prisons, denounced by the European Court of Human Rights and in an effort to harmonise the legislation with some rulings issued by the Constitutional Court.



    The pardon and amnesty do not apply to rapists, to those accused of corruption and violent acts as well as to repeat offenders. In an interview on Radio Romania, the Expert Forum chair, Laura Stefan, has warned, shortly after the MCV report was published, that the measures, only circulated at that time, would become extremely dangerous if adopted. And thats exactly what happened.



    Laura Stefan: “We can see a re-evaluation of Romanias progress in the past 10 years. If you release all the offenders who have been sent to jail in the past 10 years, its only natural that the positive evaluations in this respect turn into negative ones. Besides the criticism attracted by this type of enactment, I believe the worst thing is that the European Commission has seen that Romanias old bad habits, such as the overnight adoption of extremely dangerous laws with a heavy impact on the anti-corruption policies are still a political instrument these days. Actually, the members of the European Commission have already seen this modus operandi in Romania, on what we call the Black Tuesday, or on other occasions when politicians tried to bring overnight amendments to criminal legislation. This is why the European Commission insists on taking mature political actions and we can be confident that Romania becomes a mature country, only after politicians in this country prove they can act accordingly. Unfortunately, we see this problem persists in 2017 as well.



    But how much can civil society, every Romanian citizen, contribute to the progress of the judicial system? Laura Stefan: I believe Romania will become a mature country and the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism will be eliminated only when civil society and the political class learn the ropes of how to talk to each other. Unfortunately, these days the political class does not seem to have an appetite for discussion. I believe this is a mistake and I think that if we approach such a sensitive issue as overcrowding in prisons, there is a real need for this countrys minds to work together to find a solution to the problem. This is necessary because the problem is not easy to solve, it is a multi-faceted issue that cant be solved overnight. Its not going to be solved overnight, not even through these emergency ordinances whose collateral effect is sadly undoing any progress that has been made in the fight against corruption in our country. I believe we all should address such issues more wisely.



    Opposition parties, civil society and the magistrates associations think the aforementioned amendments have been made to benefit influential people in the political class and the administration. Romanias President Klaus Iohannis has described the day the emergency ordinance was passed as a mourning day for the rule of law in Romania, deeming the situation as unacceptable.