Constitutional challenges no longer suspend lawsuits; future corruption cases unlocked

The Romanian Parliament passed a change to the Constitutional Court law which makes it possible for large corruption cases to continue even when the constitutional challenges will be invoked. This will be applied only to new lawsuits, while the ones where the constitutional challenge has been raised will continue under the old ruling. A similar project did not pass the Parliament in May 2009. Even in yesterday's vote, the change was cleared at a close tie, with only 69 votes. Last year, the similar project did not pass, having only 68 votes, one below the required threshold. The long period until solving corruption cases was mentioned by the European Commission in its recent report on the state of the Romanian justice system. The constitutional challenge was one of the means of suspending corruption cases, sometime on indefinite terms.