Deputy of the Save Romania Union (USR) Stelian Ion, speaking on Monday at the RFI radio broadcaster, said that Justice Minister Tudorel Toader's proposal to in

Deputy of the Save Romania Union (USR) Stelian Ion, speaking on Monday at the RFI radio broadcaster, said that Justice Minister Tudorel Toader's proposal to introduce in the Criminal Code a threshold representing the equivalent to the gross minimum wage for abuse of office is correct, but lacks argumentation. 

"These debates have started more than nine months ago, when this committee was set up, and the Ministry of Justice has not yet officially sent any opinion at all. Despite information having emerged last Thursday about a threshold having been established by the Ministry of Justice, not even today has the committee received a written and reasoned point of view, yet we have all seen Justice Minister Tudorel Toader live at two TV shows yesterday stating that the threshold has finally been determined to be the equivalent of a minimum national wage," Stelian Ion, deputy chairman of the select committee on the judiciary package, told RFI. 

Asked if he considers the proposal of the Minister of Justice to be right, Stelian Ion said: "Yes, it just seems correct to us, only that we have no argument from the Ministry. It is very important to see the arguments behind this choice." 

Stelian Ion also explained that the Justice Minister did not say whether this is the only change he plans to the text that criminalizes abuse of office. 

"The Minister of Justice did not tell us whether this is the only change he wants to bring to this text that criminalizes abuse of office, because he may want to introduce a threshold while at the same time making other changes regarding the conditions for holding someone criminally liable for abuse of office (...) If, in order to be considered an offense the deed must be perpetrated for a material gain for self, things change radically, regardless if there is a threshold or not, so we need to be very careful to not have on our hands a much worse variant than the one we thought of from the very beginning, with a high threshold," said Stelian Ion. 

On Sunday, Justice Minister Tudorel Toader announced that the Justice Ministry had proposed a threshold for abuse of office, representing the equivalent of the gross national minimum wage. 

"We considered - and this is our proposal - that the threshold should be be the equivalent of the national minimum wage, not the net, but the gross amount. We have a representative of the Ministry of Justice in the select committee. (...) We have already sent this proposal. If the value of the damage is below this threshold, this means that the respective crime does not represent a social danger and the deed does not fall within the scope of the criminal offense, it remains only in the sphere of the disciplinary illegality. If the value of the damage is higher than the minimum wage, the criminal liability is engaged, but the judge - the prosecutor too, but the judge in particular - has instruments to individualize the punishment, on the one hand the execution of the sentence, but he can also decide to postpone the execution of the punishment," Toader said on Sunday at RTV.