PNL head announces Liberals move to notify Venice Commission on changes to Criminal Codes

The Liberals are taking steps to notify the Venice Commission via the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the changes to the Criminal Codes, Chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL) Ludovic Orban announced.

"Today we decided for PNL to start the procedure to notify the Venice Commission via the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, specifically via the Monitoring Committee and the Committee on Legal Affairs on the proposals to amend the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code. We consider it is absolutely necessary that the Venice Commission also expresses an opinion on these amendment bills. We resort to this procedure because, regrettably, this time again the parliamentary majority has rejected the request submitted by the PNL parliamentary group for the Parliament leadership to notify the Venice Commission before putting up the amendments for debate and adoption," Orban said at the end of the meeting of the PNL Executive Bureau at the Palace of Parliament.

Orban underscored that this move is "perfectly legitimate and normal for an EU member country."

The Liberal head mentioned that PNL has previously succeeded in notifying the Venice Commission via the PACE Monitoring Committee on the changes to the justice package.