President Iohannis: We have had to manage this pandemic with weak, sketchily designed laws

President Klaus Iohannis said on Thursday that the authorities have had to manage the COVID-19 pandemic with "weak" and "sketchily designed" laws, and that it was necessary to adjust the legislation "on the fly".

"We have had to manage this pandemic with weak laws, sketchily designed, so in the most critical health moments we had to adjust the legislation on the fly," Iohannis said at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace.

He added that the "whole" regulatory framework of exceptional measures must be rethought and aligned with the constitutional architecture, so as to provide sufficient tools for prompt and effective action by the authorities.

"In the life of a state, there are exceptional situations that require exceptional measures, situations in which even the paradigm of state action changes. Undoubtedly, the state of emergency regime was designed by the constituent legislator so as to ensure a prompt response to an imminent danger to citizens. For this reason, the entire normative framework of exceptional measures, on the one hand, must be rethought and aligned with the constitutional architecture, and, on the other hand, it must include sufficient tools for prompt and effective action by the authorities," Iohannis pointed out.

The head of state underscored that, through the Constitution, in situations of health crisis, the state is obliged to take measures so as to ensure public health, and to this end legislative solutions, "in addition to ensuring a fair balance between rights and freedoms at the same time guaranteed and protected by the state, must also ensure the recovery from the crisis".