Select committee head says amendments to Criminal Codes are a move towards normalcy in Romania

Chairman of the select parliamentary committee on the justice package Florin Iordache said on Thursday that through the bills amending the Criminal Codes, the MPs of the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) and its junior coalition partner, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) seek nothing else but normalize life in Romania, "a life that must be governed by clear rules."

"The PSD and ALDE parliamentary groups submitted yesterday [on Wednesday] in the Lower House and the Senate three initiatives aimed at modifying and rendering the Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Civil Procedure Code compliant with the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Romania, the European directives and the ECHR decisions. The three initiatives are also intended to normalize life in Romania, a life that needs to be governed by clear rules, the Constitutional Court's decisions; there has been footdragging on many articles and since the Justice Ministry and Parliament have not brought them in line in 45 days, there was a need for consistency, for a certain normalcy in society," Iordache said at the Palace of Parliament.

He added that, as far as he knows, the Ministry of Justice is not considering issuing an emergency ordinance to amend these Codes, and the regulatory acts should have been rendered compliant with the European directives by April 1.

Iordache mentioned that the Ministry of Justice did not participate in the drafting of the three legislative proposals to amend the Codes, but would be called upon to express an opinion on these initiatives of the PSD-ALDE MPs. Iordache also denied allegations that certain articles in the legislative initiatives would favor some politicians, PSD national leader Liviu Dragnea included.

"We don't put forth laws with dedication, no law is hammered out for a particular person. When it is promulgated, the law will apply to the entire society; we have come up with certain proposals, they are under debate and will definitely change through the effort and the proposals made by the professional associations, the Superior Council of the Magistracy (CSM), the Supreme Court, and the law universities in Romania's most important cities," he said.

Asked why culpable carelessness was removed in the legislative blueprints, Iordache said that this misfeasance "was overlapping with abuse of office".

"In the explanatory memorandum you will see the reasons why we proposed the abrogation of this crime. (...) We have defined the main guidelines aimed at redefining abuse of office, there are already around 14 proposals with a higher or lower threshold, and the Minister of Justice said he would too make a proposal on abuse of office; we will find the best formula to define abuse of office by debates in the committee," Iordache said.

He also explained that a numerical threshold might be completely scrapped for abuse of office.

"I said that setting a certain threshold would trigger an entire debate over why that particular value and why not a lower or a higher one. I think that the definition of abuse of office should be done without linking it to a particular threshold, taking into account the two decisions of the Constitutional Court of Romania. Maybe the Ministry of Justice has a proposal to better bring together the two decisions of the Constitutional Court of Romania," Iordache concluded.