Cazanciuc: President blames "inadmissibly" Parliament for Gov't's stupidities

The interim Speaker of the Senate, Robert Cazanciuc, stated on Tuesday that the head of state, Klaus Iohannis, blames "inadmissibly" Parliament regarding the quarantine and isolation law, adding that Social Democratic Party (PSD) does not procrastinate anything but wants a good normative act in this matter.

"I saw a little earlier a statement by the President of Romania in which he inadmissibly blames Parliament for the his Government's stupidities. It is completely unacceptable for President Iohannis to blame Parliament for the number of positive cases in recent days. (... ) We do not accept him to teach us lessons, we do not accept blackmail. (...) President Iohannis is now coming to defend the nonsense in the Government's draft law. He is defending the abusive deprivation of freedom in the Government's bill, the abusive confiscation of goods on the grounds of pandemic the way his Government proposed, he is defending the forced labor that doctors will be subjected to through the Government's bill. We will not accept this. The pandemic cannot be invoked to kill democracy," Cazanciuc said in Parliament.

He stressed the need for a quarantine law, but this normative act must contain guarantees that the restriction of citizens' rights is not done abusively.

"PSD does not procrastinate anything. When Mr. Iohannis was away at the weekend I remind you that Parliament worked until 4.00 in the morning. PSD MPs were here to fix the nonsense of the Orban Government. PSD wants to make a law not only for the authorities, but especially for the citizens," said Robert Cazanciuc.

According to him, in March, Klaus Iohannis was thinking about early elections and said that the virus is a simple cold.

"President Iohannis is the only political leader who has denied the importance of this virus," Cazanciuc said.

The social-democrat said the Government had received all the leverage needed to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

"He received a vote for the Government, a vote for the state of emergency, a vote for the state of alert, a vote for all their measures, and now that the situation seems out of control he blames Parliament. It was not Parliament's fault for the legislative vacuum (...) when they sent the the draft state of alert too late to Parliament. It is not Parliament's fault that the Government sent a bad law to Parliament on the last day," the PSD senator explained.

In his view, there was no need for the Government to wait for the motivation of the Constitutional Court's decision to draw up the draft law on quarantine and isolation.