After year's deadlock, USR's 'No convicts in public offices' initiative enters Parliament for debate

After a year of deadlock, the citizens' initiative to revise the Constitution called "No convicts in public offices" will reach the Chamber of Deputies for a debate at an extraordinary session of the first half of July, Save the Romania Union (USR) reported on Monday, asking for the initiative not to be merged with other drafts of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) or the National Liberal Party (PNL).

"USR hopes that the decision to place the citizens' initiative on the agenda of the special session will not be an exercise for the image of the major parties, as has been the case with USR's special pension bill. At the same time, we are requesting that the purpose of the citizens' initiative not be hijacked by merging our initiative with other PSD and PNL drafts or, even worse, by making changes that would make it unconstitutional," said USR.

USR national leader Dan Barna said that every step of this project "took a long time."

Placing the USR initiative on the agenda of a plenary session has been impermissibly delayed for a long time, said in his turn USR MP Catalin Drula, the USR floor leader in the Chamber of Deputies.

The "No convicts in public offices" initiative proposes that Article 37 of the Constitution, which regulates the right to be elected, be supplemented with a new paragraph reading: "No citizen sentenced for crimes committed with intent under a final and binding sentence shall be elected to local public administration bodies, the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate or President of Romania until the a situation occurs that removes the consequences of the conviction."